Cellular properties and multilineage potential of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells for cartilage regeneration

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) have high self-renewal and trilineage differentiation capacity which makes them a potential source for the regeneration of cartilage tissue. Hence, the present study was aimed to evaluate human BMSCs on their cellular and biological properties such as morphology, viability, proliferation and population doubling time (PDT), colony-forming-unit assay, senescence activity, cytogenetic stability, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, surface marker expression, and multilineage potential towards osteocytes, adipocytes and chondrocytes. Established BMSCs (n=3) exhibited spindle-shaped morphology during primary culture and early passages but acquired characteristic fibroblast-like features later. Viability was >95% at all passages; however, BMSC1 showed decreased viability during later passages (P3-P5). PDT values were slightly higher in BMSC2 and BMSC3 when compared to BMSC1. BMSCs showed colony formation ability and positive staining pattern for ALP activity. Further, BMSCs had a positive expression for CD29, CD90 and CD73 and negative expression for CD34 and CD45. All BMSCs were successfully differentiated towards osteocytes, adipocytes and chondrocytes upon specific induction. BMSCs were shown to be proliferative with expression of MSC-specific phenotypic markers and ability for multilineage differentiation potential. These BMSCs could possibly be used in prospective therapeutic applications in cartilage regeneration.