Morphological Characteristics of Ovine Fetal Liver Cells

In recent years, research in the field of stem cells is rapidly expanding and the published data are of great promise for the future of the regenerative medicine. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are a relatively new direction in these studies. Their ability to differentiate to a number of cell types indicates that they have the potential to be used as therapy for a variety of medical conditions. Along with the aforementioned, in general public a discussion was forwarded regarding the moral standards in science and the use of human embryos and foetuses for stem cells research. Therefore, our investigations are aimed at isolation and culture of the adherent fraction of ovine fetal liver cells and their introduction as an experimental in vitro model. Our results showed that the isolation of the cells is comparatively easy and that they are capable of long-term culture without differentiation. In addition, the adherent ovine fetal liver-derived cells have high proliferative capacity and exhibited similar morphological characteristics to MSC. According to these findings we suggest, they could be successfully used instead of human material in fundamental research, in order to avoid ethical restrictions.