Immortalized mesenchymal stem cells: An alternative to primary mesenchymal stem cells in neuronal differentiation and neuroregeneration associated studies

Background: mesenchymal stem cells (mscs) can be induced to differentiate into neuronal cells under appropriate cellular conditions and transplanted in brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases animal models for neuroregeneration studies. in contrast to the embryonic stem cells (escs),mscs are easily subject to aging and senescence because of their finite ability of self-renewal. mscs senescence seriously affected theirs application prospects as a promising tool for cell-based regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. in the present study,we established a reversible immortalized mesenchymal stem cells (imscs) line by using ssr#69 retrovirus expressing simian virus 40 large t (sv40t) antigen as an alternative to primary mscs. methods. the retroviral vector ssr#69 expressing simian virus 40 large t (sv40t) antigen was used to construct imscs. imscs were identified by flow cytometry to detect cell surface makers. to investigate proliferation and differentiation potential of imscs,cell growth curve determination and mesodermal trilineage differentiation tests were performed. neuronal differentiation characteristics of imscs were detected in vitro. before imscs transplantation,we excluded its tumorigenicity in nude mice firstly. the morris water maze tests and shuttle box tests were performed five weeks after hibd models received cells transplantation therapy. results: in this study,reversible imscs were constructed successfully and had the similar morphology and cell surface makers as primary mscs. imscs possessed better ability of proliferation and anti-senescence compared with primary mscs,while maintained multilineage differentiation capacity. neural-like cells derived from imscs had similar expressions of neural-specific genes,protein expression patterns and resting membrane potential (rmp) compared with their counterparts derived from primary mscs. there was no bump formation in nude mice subcutaneously injected with imscs. imscs played same role as primary mscs to improve learning ability and spatial memory of hibd rats. conclusions: imscs not only retain their features of primary mscs but also possess the ability of high proliferation and anti-senescence. imscs can definitely be induced to differentiate into neuronal cells in vitro and take the place of primary mscs for cell transplantation therapy without tumorigenesis in vivo. the stable cell line is particularly useful and valuable as an alternative to mscs in neuronal differentiation and neuroregeneration associated studies. © 2011 gong et al; licensee biomed central ltd.