Influence of Different Medium Composition in the Generation and Functionality of Postnatal Skin-Derived Stem Cells

  • Ines Castro ((PhD) Student)
  • Joery De Kock (Promotor)
  • Helena Florindo (Promotor)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Stem cells are at the same time a source of enormous possibilities and controversy.
For some, they represent a potential cure for degenerative diseases such as
Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes or for the substitution of various tissues that fail
to regenerate properly including the spinal cord, cardiac muscle, knee cartilage, as well
as a variety of bone defects such as bone malformation and osteoporosis. The main
drawback inherent to the use of stem cells is associated with their source, particularly
the use of embryos to isolate embryonic stem cells and their tumorigenic potential.
Over the last few decades, the finding that many adult organs contain precursor or
adult stem cells brings the possibility for cell therapy without the controversial use of
embryos. In contrast to their pluripotent embryonic counterparts, adult stem cells
(ASC) were considered for more than a decade to be lineage-restricted, thus incapable
of overcoming origin- and tissue-bound restrictions. Over the last years, the presence
of postnatal stem cell populations in bone marrow, skin, umbilical cord, neuronal and
adipose tissue, the so-called stem cell niches, giving rise to cell types different from
the tissue of origin, has been repeatedly reported by several research groups.
Thus, ASC are an attractive source for autologous cell transplantation, tissue
engineering, developmental and the set-up of human-based alternative in vitro models
to animal testing. A promising non-embryonic mesoderm-derived stem cell source
consists of hSKP (human skin-derived precursor), a novel and abundantly population
of neural-crest-like precursor cells easily isolated from human neonatal, infant or adult
skin with a limited lifespan and displaying favourable immunological properties.
Human SKP represent a multipotent pool of stem cells capable of generating neuronal,
glial and mesodermal progeny. The fact that hSKP derivatives such as Schwann
and neuronal cells display functionality in vitro as well as in vivo raises the possibility 2
of hSKP being both an experimental and therapeutic resource for disease modelling
and regenerative medicine.
Researchers from this lab have previously isolated, expanded and characterized a
putative pluripotent precursor cell from human foreskin (unpublished data). The
method to isolate these precursors was similar to the one used to isolate hSKP, yet
the methods to grow and expand these cells were different. As such, the host lab found
that these precursors, in spite of being derived from the same tissue as hSKPs exhibit
a different gene expression pattern. Thus a new population of putative pluripotent
precursors, termed skin-derived neural crest-like cells (SNCC) was discovered.
In this work, we are going to evaluate the trilineage (endodermal, mesodermal and
ectodermal) differentiation capacity of human foreskin-derived SNCC upon exposure
to several (non)commercial differentiation media. In addition, the isolation, expansion
and further characterization of SNCC will be discussed.
Date of Award2014
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorJoery De Kock (Promotor) & Helena Florindo (Promotor)

Keywords

  • adult stem cells

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