Comprehensive transcriptome and immunophenotype analysis of renal and cardiac MSC-like populations supports strong congruence with bone marrow MSC despite maintenance of distinct identities

• DOI: 10.1016/j.scr.2011.08.003
• Publication Date: 2011-08-18T04:01:04Z
• Authors: Rebecca A. Pelekanos; Joan Li; Milena Gongora; Vashe Chandrakanthan; Janelle Scown; Norseha Suhaimi; Gary Brooke; Melinda E. Christ...; Tram Doan; Alison M. Rice; Geoffrey W. Osborne; Sean M. Grimmond; Richard P. Harvey; Kerry Atkinson; Melissa H. Little
• Keywords: Pluripotent Stem Cells; 0301 basic medicine; Messenger; Bone Marrow Cells; Kidney; Immunophenotyping; 1307 Cell Biology; 1309 Developmental Biology; Colony-Forming Units Assay; Epitopes; Mice; 03 medical and health sciences; Cell & Tissue Engineering; 616; Animals; Gene Regulatory Networks; RNA, Messenger; Cell Shape; Medicine(all); Immunosuppression Therapy; Gene Expression Profiling; Myocardium; Mesenchymal Stem Cells; Cell Biology; Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology; Gene Expression Regulation; Organ Specificity; RNA; Transcriptome; Developmental Biology

Cells resembling bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) have been isolated from many organs but their functional relationships have not been thoroughly examined. Here we compared the immunophenotype, gene expression, multipotency and immunosuppressive potential of MSC-like colony-forming cells from adult murine bone marrow (bmMSC), kidney (kCFU-F) and heart (cCFU-F), cultured under uniform conditions. All populations showed classic MSC morphology and in vitro mesodermal multipotency. Of the two solid organ-specific CFU-F, only kCFU-F displayed suppression of T-cell alloreactivity in vitro, albeit to a lesser extent than bmMSC. Quantitative immunophenotyping using 81 phycoerythrin-conjugated CD antibodies demonstrated that all populations contained high percentages of cells expressing diagnostic MSC surface markers (Sca1, CD90.2, CD29, CD44), as well as others noted previously on murine MSC (CD24, CD49e, CD51, CD80, CD81, CD105). Illumina microarray expression profiling and bioinformatic analysis indicated a correlation of gene expression of 0.88-0.92 between pairwise comparisons. All populations expressed approximately 66% of genes in the pluripotency network (Plurinet), presumably reflecting their stem-like character. Furthermore, all populations expressed genes involved in immunomodulation, homing and tissue repair, suggesting these as conserved functions for MSC-like cells in solid organs. Despite this molecular congruence, strong biases in gene and protein expression and pathway activity were seen, suggesting organ-specific functions. Hence, tissue-derived MSC may also retain unique properties potentially rendering them more appropriate as cellular therapeutic agents for their organ of origin.