Culture conditions for growth of clinical grade human tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells: Comparative study between Commercial serum-free media and human product supplemented media

Background: Large scale high quality and low cost production of clinical grade mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is critical for facilitating clinical research and potential stem cell therapies. Use of Fetal Bovine/Calf serum (FBS/FCS) for the clinical application carries a risk for transmission of zoonosis, therefore alternative xeno-free cell culture techniques have been evaluated. The commercial products for the culture of MSCs in xeno-free and/or serum free media such as STEMPRO® MSC SFM and MesenGro® are available but possibly not cost effective for large scale production of MSCs. The usage of human serum and pooled human platelet lysate (pHPL) present xeno-free alternatives as growth supplements. Methods: In this report, we analyzed the growth potentials of human tissue derived MSCs from bone marrow (BM), umbilical cord tissue (UCT) and umbilical cord blood (UCB) in presence of xeno-free, serum free commercial culture media (STEMPRO® MSC SFM and MesenGro®) and serum containing media supplemented with pHPL, FBS and human serum. We also evaluated the role of surface of culture flasks for the optimal production of MSCs from these tissues by comparing the expansion potential of MSCs in culture flasks from Costar®, CellBIND®, Greiner® and Tarsons® brands. Results: We compared the growth potentials of these MSCs derived from these human tissues and found that pHPL supplemented culture media serves as an efficient, cost effective xeno-free media to produce clinical grade human MSCs for clinical applications. Interestingly, out of two commercial media, MesenGro® demonstrated better isolation and expansion potential than STEMPRO® MSC SFM indicating that composition of commercial media affected the MSCs isolation and expansion although MSCs showed similar phenotypic characteristics and post cryopreservation viability. The MSCs production was at best in culture flasks with CellBIND® surface treatment. Conclusion: We conclude that pHPL supplemented media provide cost effective and efficacious way to produce clinical grade MSCs from various human tissues as opposed to commercial media. We showed that UCT can be an alternative option for large number of MSCs and unique surface treatment of cell culture flasks such as CellBIND® facilitates large scale production of MSCs from various human tissues.