Comparison of the Gene Transfer Efficiency of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Harvested from Murine Fat and Bone Marrow

Mesenchymal stem cells have the potential to secrete a variety of humoral factors, deliver exogenous genes and differentiate into a range of cells. Thus, these cells may serve as carriers for cell and gene-cell therapies. In this paper, we report differences between adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs) and bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BSCs) from the viewpoint of gene transfer efficiency. Both ASCs and BSCs were harvested from 5-week-old mice (C57BL/6N). Following three passages in culture, we analyzed the capacity of these cells to differentiate along osteogenic, chondrogenic and adipogenic lineages in vitro. After confirmation of multipotency, these cell populations were studied for gene transfer efficiency, using adenoviral, lentiviral, retroviral and adeno-associated viral (AAV) type 1, 2 and 5 vectors. EGFP was used as the reporter for all vectors. The gene encoding EGFP was transduced into ASCs more easily than into BSCs. Both cell populations were transduced effectively with AAV types 1 and 5, lentiviral and retroviral vectors, but were resistant to transduction with adenoviral and AAV type 2 vectors. In conclusion, found that the AAV types 1 and 5, lentiviral and retroviral vectors deserved further study in both ASCs and BSCs. Moreover, the transduction efficiency of ASCs was greater than that of BSCs, suggesting that the former would be more useful in clinical applications involving gene transduction.