Study of expansion of porcine bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells on microcarriers using various operating conditions

Background Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) represent promising source for tissue engineering and cell therapy, due to their multipotency, immunoregulation and self-renewal properties [1,2]. The expansion phase of these cells prior to differentiation and/or injection to the patient remains a critical step. BM-MSCs are classically expanded in small scale culture systems, with low control of culture conditions. However, tissue engineering and cell therapy require very large quantities of cells that cannot be easily achieved using processes in static flasks [3]. Microcarriers, classically used for industrial large scale culture of continuous cell lines, could be advantageously applied to stem cells expansion such as BM-MSCs [4-6]. Our objective was to study the influence of some operating parameters (agitation rate, microcarrier feed) on expansion and organization (adhesion, aggregation) of porcine BM-MSCs cultivated on collagen-free microcarriers, in order to improve cell expansion while maintaining their multipotency.