Comparison of Proliferation, Senescence and Differentiation into Skeletal Cell Lineages of Murine Bone Marrow-Derived and Amniotic Fluid Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Background: While mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been isolated from multiple tissue sources, the differences existed between the cells from different tissues have still remained to be clarified. This study compares MSCs from murine amniotic fluid (AF) with those from bone marrow (BM) tissues. Methods: AF and BM cells were collected from 10 NMRI mice at second weeks of their pregnancy and the culture was expanded. The isolated MSCs were then compared in terms of in vitro differentiation capacity, expansion rate and the percentages of senescence-associated ß-galactosidase (SA- ß-gal) positive-cells in their cultures. Results: Either cell appeared to be able to differentiate into bone, cartilage and adipose cell lineage. AF-cells were observed to be more proliferative than BM-cells. The population doubling time (PDT) of AF-cells was 92.6±13.9 hours compared to 168± 40 hours that was recorded for BM-cells. The percentage of SA- ß-gal positive- cells in AF-cell culture appeared to be significantly lower than that in BM-cell culture. Conclusions: Collectively, it seems that murine AF housed MSCs with a relatively higher proliferation property than BM-derived MSCs and a typical tripotent differentiation potential comparable with marrow MSCs, hence it would be as an appropriate source of MSCs for use in regenerative medicine related studies.