Endothelial Differentiation Of Human Umbilical Cord Wharton's Jelly-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells In Comparison With Bone Marrow-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represent an attractive cell source for tissue engineering. Neovascularization of tissues derived from tissue engineering becomes a critical factor for the development of tissue-engineering. In this study, MSCs isolated from human umbilical cord Wharton's Jelly (UCMSCs) were induced to differentiate into endothelial-like cells and endothelial differentiation of UCMSCs was compared with that of MSCs isolated from human bone marrow (BMMSCs).UCMSCs showed similar morphology and similar level of the typical MSC marker expression, compared with MSCs derived from bone marrow (BMMSCs). However, UCMSCs showed higher proliferative potential than BMMSCs.Both immunocytochemistry study and Real-Time PCR analysis demonstrated that after endothelial differentiation, UCMSCs had higher level of three endothelial-specific marker expression than BMMSCs. Moreover, UCMSCs displayed greater angiogenesis potential than BMMSCs. Both UCMSCs and BMMSCs showed similar LDL-uptaking capacity.. These results revealed that UCMSCs had greater endothelial differentiation potential than BMMSCs.In addition, UCMSCs are less likely rejected as tissue engineering cell source due to their origin of incompletely developed immune system and can be obtained more easily, compared with BMMSCs. These data suggest that UCMSCs can be more favorable choice for neovascularization of engineered tissues and for treatment of vascular related diseases than BMMSCs.