Cryopreservation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

초록

Stem cell therapy for incurable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders has been studied in many countries. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are known to be a valuable source in cell therapy because they have no ethical issues and immunosuppressive properties. Cryopreservation is an important step for the long-term storage of stem cells. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is frequently used in freezing media. However, FBS has many problems that can lead to animal-derived contamination and cause immunogenicity when patients are treated with stem cells. To overcome these problems, storage-protein 2 (SP2) was used for replacing FBS. SP2 is a soluble protein derived from silkworm hemolymph. SP2 has been confirmed to inactivate reactive oxygen species (ROS) in mammalian cell cultures. hMSCs were cryopreserved with freezing medium containing SP2. It was found that the effect of ROS was reduced by SP2 during the cryopreservation of hMSCs. After cryopreservation, specific surface markers and stemness genes of hMSCs were continuously expressed and potential of differentiation was maintained. In conclusion, SP2 could replace FBS in cell banking without changing quality of hMSCs.