Influence of Oxygen Concentration on Trilineage Differentiation of Human Fetal Cells

Jhanvee Patel*, Yixuan Pei, and Ming Pei Ming Pei

Department of Orthopaedics, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, WV 26505

Presentation Category: Health Sciences (Poster Presentation #128)

Student’s Major: Journalism

Stem cell tissue engineering is a promising approach to treat tissue defects such as cartilage damage, bone loss, and breast reconstruction. In this study, we hypothesize oxygen concentration plays a critical role in human fetal stem cell based tissue regeneration. Human nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs), cartilaginous cells, and synovium-derived stem cells (SDSCs), tissue-specific stem cells for chondrogenesis (cartilage pathway), were used for in vitro trilineage evaluation: chondrogenesis, adipogenesis (fat pathway), and osteogenesis (bone pathway). Histological staining, real-timer PCR, and western plot were used for data analysis at mRNA and protein levels. The study was split in two parts. In the pretreatment study, either normal (21%) or low oxygen (5%) was used to expand cells followed by standard differentiation induction. We found low oxygen pretreatment promoted adipogenic differentiation with SDSCs having a higher capacity than NPCs. The low oxygen pretreatment did not cause significant difference in osteogenic differentiation, but SDSCs displayed higher capacity compared to NPCs. The low oxygen pretreatment promoted chondrogenic differentiation with NPCs having a higher capacity than SDSCs. In the differentiation study, cells were expanded in normal oxygen, followed by either normal or low oxygen during differentiation induction. We found low oxygen treatment promoted adipogenic differentiation with SDSCs having a higher capacity than NPCs. The low oxygen treatment caused a decrease in osteogenic differentiation, but the SDSCs displayed higher capacity than NPCs. The low oxygen treatment promoted chondrogenic differentiation with NPCs having a higher capacity than SDSCs. We concluded oxygen concentration significantly affects differentiation in a lineage-dependent manner.

Funding: The National Institutes of Health (1R01AE067747)

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU's Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) & accompanying HONR 297-level course