Published Paper Details:

For tissue regeneration, preconditioning of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) prior to cell transplantation has been noted to activate target gene set and specific molecular functions. An efficient MSC source for tissue regeneration is amniotic fluid-derived MSC (AF-MSC) owing to their potential in tissue repair and paracrine secretion. However, a standard chondrogenic differentiation medium of MSC, which promotes differentiation through a signal of transforming growth factor (TGF)-?1, makes for an unstable and limited outcome on amniotic fluid-derived MSC (AF-MSC) differentiation into chondrogenic lineage. To increase the differentiation outcome of AF-MSC, we investigated chondrogenic differentiation effects of eight growth factors (GFs)/cytokines on AF-MSC through expression of chondrogenesis-related genes, including Col-I, Col-II, ACAN, RunX2 and SOX9. Our work demonstrates that anabolic Col-II gene can be increased by stimulation of TGF-?, insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and stromal derived factor 1 ? (SDF-1?) with a concentration-dependency. We found that TGF-? elevated anabolic gene function and declined expression of Col-I, typically present in fibrocartilage, during chondrogenic differentiation of AF-MSC. Moreover, TGF-? was not toxic to micro-environment for AF-MSC differentiation. Substitution of TGF-?1 by TGF-? in the condition medium can enhance over two times expression of Col-II and SOX9 genes in AF-MSC. The current study also demonstrated that single GF/cytokine has a greater effect to elevate chondrogenic differentiation of AF-MSC than the GF/cytokine combinations. We conclude that TGF-? preconditioning improved chondrogenesis in AF-MSC for cartilage regeneration.