Human placenta is rich in mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC), with their origin widely presumed fetal. However, we found that in cultured placental MSC, a high frequency of maternal cell contamination occurred. We determined isolation conditions to yield fetal and separately maternal MSC during ex vivo expansion from human term placenta. Comparison of MSC populations within the same placenta confirmed fetal to be smaller, more osteogenic and proliferative than maternal MSC. The next step is to thoroughly compare fetal and maternal placenta-derived MSC for characteristics including gene expression, in vitro differentiation and in vivo disease models.
Techniques: placental MSC isolation, cell culture, microscopy, microarray gene expression analysis, and in vitro and in vivo cell assays.
