Abstract
Background aims
Human adipose stem cells (ASC) are an abundant, readily available population of multipotent progenitor cells that reside in adipose tissue. ASC have been shown to have therapeutic applicability in pre-clinical studies, but a standardized expansion method for clinical cell therapy has yet to be established. Isolated ASC are typically expanded in medium containing fetal bovine serum (FBS); however, sera and other culturing reagents of animal origin in clinical therapy pose numerous safety issues, including possible infections and severe immune reactions.
Methods
To identify optimal conditions for ex vivo expansion of ASC, the effects of seven serum-free (SF) and xeno-free (XF) media were investigated with both FBS and allogeneic human serum (alloHS; as a control media). Surface marker expression, proliferation, morphology and differentiation analyzes were utilized for investigating the effects of media on ASC.
Results
The proliferation and morphology analysis demonstrated significant differences between ASC cultured in SF/XF culture media compared with serum-containing culture media, with medium prototype STEMPRO® MSC SFM XF providing significantly higher proliferation rates than ASC cultured in media containing serum, while still maintaining the differentiation potential and surface marker expression profile characteristic of ASC.
Conclusions
Looking forward, fully defined XF media formulations will provide the means for the development and approval of safer clinical cell therapy treatments. However, to fully recognize the capacity of these XF culture media, further pre-clinical safety and efficacy studies must be performed.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Ms Anna-Maija Honkala, Ms Minna Salomäki, Mrs Sari Kalliokoski and Ms Miia Juntunen for technical assistance and Mr Henrik Mannerström for graphic processing consultation. The work was supported by TEKES, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, the competitive research funding of the Pirkanmaa Hospital District, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation Pirkanmaa Provincial Foundation.
Declaraion of Interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The author alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.