Efficient culturing of human mesenchymal stromal cells for cell therapy research

Stem cell therapy, in which stem cells are used for disease treatment or tissue repair, is an increasingly active area of research. Treatment of many chronic diseases with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) has yielded promising results for inducing tissue repair and regeneration. Human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs) are widely used in cell therapy because of their ease of harvest, self-renewal, and ability to suppress activation of innate and adaptive immune response. Furthermore, hMSCs release bioactive molecules and possess homing properties which are important for tissue repair. These distinct properties of hMSCs result in progression of treatments for a wide range of diseases.

For culturing and expansion of hMSCs in vitro; fetal bovine serum (FBS) is routinely used, but it carries the risk of xeno-immunity & zoonotic transmission if such cells are to be used for cell therapy. For this reason, chemically defined xeno-free and serum-free media are used to culture therapeutic stem cells for translational research. However, culturing with serum-free media requires coating of the cell culture surface with extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. These proteins can trigger an uncontrolled immune response and affect graft integration. To use hMSCs for cell therapy research, it is important to avoid these immune response eliciting substances. For efficient invitro culturing of hMSCs without the need of serum or ECM coating, Nunclon Supra is one of the specialized high attachment surfaces available in the market. Growing cells on such surfaces can help with more consistent results and smooth transition into clinical applications while maintaining high cell quality and potency.

The efficacy of cell therapy is not only based on the quality and phenotype of cells, but also on transplantation methodology. Traditionally, transplantation of MSCs required the use of biological scaffolds, whose degradation would lead to fibrosis. Thus, researchers these days are using scaffold-free cell sheet technique which enables viable cell grafting at host site. Contrary to the traditional cell injections where cells disappear in a short time; cells from a sheet are targeted on the damaged area, and multiple sheets could also be transplanted. Fabrication of hMSC sheets is becoming an important tool for regenerative medicine. These sheets can be generated in a scaffold free format by using temperature-responsive surfaces. Nunc Upcell is one such surface which permits cell harvest without cell protein damage. Harvested sheet preserves ECMs, cell–cell junctions, and cell–ECM junctions which are important for effective cell-based therapy. In summary, the use of hMSCs in translational research, is accelerating. hMSCs exhibit distinct advantages in cell therapy, and it is important to provide precise culture conditions for their growth and proliferation. The experimental data presented here demonstrate the application of Nunclon Supra surface to facilitate GMP culturing of hMSCs and highlights the application of Nunc UpCell surface to fabricate hMSCs cell sheets. Overall, this would help MSCs translation to clinical practice while maintaining their safety, quality, and efficacy standards.

 

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