Title:Effects of Hypoxia on Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Volume: 15
Issue: 4
Author(s): Wei Chen, Yi Zhuo, Da Duan and Ming Lu*
Affiliation:
- Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Neurorestoratology, The Second Affiliated Hospital (the 921st Hospital of PLA), Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410003,China
Keywords:
Hypoxic preconditioning, mesenchymal stem cell, differentiation.
Abstract: Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) are distributed in many parts of the human body, including
the bone marrow, placenta, umbilical cord, fat, and nasal mucosa. One of the unique features of
MSCs is their multidirectional differentiation potential, including the ability to undergo osteogenesis,
adipogenesis, and chondrogenesis, and to produce neurons, endothelial cells, Schwann cells, medullary
nucleus cells, cardiomyocytes, and alveolar epithelial cells. MSCs have thus become a hot research
topic in recent years. Numerous studies have investigated the differentiation of MSCs into various
types of cells in vitro and their application to numerous fields. However, most studies have cultured
MSCs under atmospheric oxygen tension with an oxygen concentration of 21%, which does not reflect
a normal physiological state, given that the oxygen concentration generally used in vitro is four to ten
times that to which MSCs would be exposed in the body. We therefore review the growing number of
studies exploring the effect of hypoxic preconditioning on the differentiation of MSCs.