In vitro study of biological characteristics of mesenchymal stem cells in patients with low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome.

The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) include a diverse groups of clonal and potentially malignant bone marrow disorders. Evidences exist that microenvironment cells from MDS marrow show functional abnormalities, which may be relevant to the incidence of such a disease. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a very important component of hematopoietic microenvironment. This study was supposed to investigate the biological characteristics and functions of MSC derived from patients with MDS in low-risk. MSCs from bone marrow samples of 11 low-risk MDS patients were isolated, cultured and expanded. Morphology, immunophenotype and osteoblasts differentiation were analyzed. Their capacity of proliferation and hematopoietic supporting in vitro were measured. A real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction method (RQ RT-PCR) was used for detecting the expression levels of relative cytokines and chemokines in MSC. MSCs from healthy donors were used as controls. The results showed that the culture-expanded cells from MDS patients displayed a typical fibroblast-like morphology. Cells were positive for SH2 (CD105), SH3 (CD73), Thy-1 (CD90), while negative for CD34 and CD45. After induction, these cells could differentiate into osteoblasts. The proliferative ability of MSCs in MDS patients were not different from those of MSC isolated from normal bone marrow (p > 0.05), however, their capacity of hematopoietic supporting in vitro were significantly weaker (p < 0.05). RQ RT-PCR detection indicated that the SDF-1 gene expression level in MSCs of low-risk MDS patients was significantly higher than that in MSC derived from healthy donors (p < 0.01). It is concluded that the abnormal function of MSC influences the regulation of hemotopoiesis in the bone marrow microenvironment of MDS patients. It is worthy to further investigate the new clue in etiological mechanism and therapeutic strategies for MDS.