In Search of In Vivo MSC

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In Search of In Vivo MSC is written by Simone Pacini and published by Frontiers Media SA. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 2889452352 (ISBN 10) and 9782889452354 (ISBN 13).

The concept of multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) arose from the work of A.J. Friedenstein and coworkers in which the authors observed that culturing human bone marrow (BM) cell suspensions, in plastic dishes, lead to isolation of proliferating adhered colonies of fribroblastoid cells able to differentiate into chondrocytes or osteoblasts, in vitro and in vivo. Authors firstly described these cells as colony forming units of fibroblastoid cells (CFU-Fs) referring to their ability to form large colonies on plastic surfaces. The acronymous “MSC” became popular after the work of A.I. Caplan et al in 1991 where the authors proposed that in adult BM, a population of stem cells could differentiate into different tissues originated from the mesodermal layer, during embryonic development. They termed these cells as “mesenchymal stem cells” (MSCs). Later, the multilineage differentiation capability of MSCs was then definitively demonstrated, these cells shown a stable phenotype expressing novel markers as CD105, CD73 and CD90 and could be expanded retaining the ability to differentiate, in vitro, into vary mesodermal tissues. Some investigators described these latest findings as the definitive characterization of the culture expanded CFU-F population originally described by Friedenstein group, but the identity of the putative in vivo MSC remain enigmatic. Emerging interest in identifying the MSCs in vivo counterpart in order to indicate feasible prospective isolation methods lead to increasing number of ex vivo isolating immunological procedures. Nonetheless, any effort failed to describe a definitive and widely accepted protocol, and significantly contributed to the ongoing confusion in the description of the in vivo MSC identity. Meanly, the inconclusive data about isolation of the putative MSC progenitor could be ascribed to the assumption that any marker expressed on culture-expanded MSCs was also likely to be present in vivo. Consequently, independent laboratories have begun to use different markers of cultured MSCs to search for MSCs in the source tissue. This has resulted in the perception that these in vivo progenitors were highly heterogeneous cell population and that the different protocols applied could lead to the isolation of distinct sub-populations showing increased CFU-F frequencies. This issue is organized in two sections. In the first section, there are collected articles regarding the effects of culture determinats on the heterogeneity of MSC preparations, and how to interpret data from culture expanded cells. The second section presents contributes regarding the impact of MSCs and their in vivo counterpart on health and disease.