Landscape of Differentiation Potentials as a "Hallmark" in Oral-derived MSCs

BackgroundMesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) offer clinical promise for use in cell therapy approaches for regenerative medicine. A therapeutic challenge is that MSCs from different tissues are phenotypically and functionally distinct. Therefore, this study aims to molecularly characterize oral-derived MSCs by defining one of the three hallmarks of MSCs, differentiation potential, to discern their true molecular identities. MethodsThree different populations of oral tissue MSCs (from alveolar bone-aBMSCs; from dental pulp-DPSCs; and from gingiva-GMSCs) from three different patients were isolated and cultured. These MSCs were characterized for their stemness by flow cytometry and multi-differentiation potential, and their RNA was also isolated and analyzed quantitatively with RNA sequencing. Total mRNA-seq was performed and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in pairwise (DPSCs vs. aBMSCs, GMSCs vs. aBMSCs, and GMSCs vs. DPSCs) and tissue-specific comparisons (aBMSCs vs. Others, DPSCs vs. Others, GMSCs vs. Others) (FDR, p View larger version (69K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@60aeceorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@17480a2org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1a9315aorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@e74d30_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG