Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are multipotent cells found throughout the human body, meaning that they can differentiate into mature human cells. In addition to these progenitor capabilities, MSCs are also therapeutic due to their ability to regulate immune response, such as controlling inflammation, through the release of bioactive molecules.

In MSC manufacturing, the culture expansion media is essential in stimulating cell proliferation, promoting differentiation capacities of the cell, and controlling the cell secretory profile. The traditional MSC culture medium includes fetal bovine serum (FBS) which is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration due to risk of contamination by exposing human cells to animal serum. In recent years, however, FDA-approved human platelet lysates (hPL), isolated from human blood, have been discovered as a potential alternative to fetal bovine serum in MSC culture media.

The focus of this research project was to compare the effectiveness of FBS-based medium and hPL medium on infrapatellar fat pad (IFP) MSCs. Quantitative comparisons of the cell phenotypes, the stemness and multipotential capacity of MSCs, and the secretory growth factor profiles of MSCs showed a significant upregulation of progenitor and immunoregulatory capacities of IFP-MSCs cultured in hPL medium, supporting its use in MSC manufacturing.

The use of hPL medium is essential in bypassing regulatory restrictions on MSCs use, allowing for widespread MSC use in treating musculoskeletal injuries, auto immune diseases, in vivo arthritis, as well as many other health issues affecting millions of patients that were previously believed to be incurable.