Comparative Investigation of Human Amniotic Epithelial Cells and Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Application in Bone Tissue Engineering

Figure 1

hAECs show a different phenotype compared to hBMSCs and hAFMSCs. (a) hAECs exhibited an epithelial-like morphology under the light microscope and scanning electron microscope, while both hAFMSCs and hBMSCs showed a spindle-shaped fibroblast morphology. (b) CCK-8 results at days 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 after cell seeding revealed a significant higher proliferation activity of hAECs at day 8, 10, and 12 compared to the other two cells (: ). Flow cytometry analysis for the basic surface makers demonstrated that all cell sources were positive for the MSC markers CD44, CD90, CD105, and lacked the expression of hematopoietic makers CD45, CD34. Moreover, hAECs expressed a higher level of CD326 and SSEA4, while hBMSCs barely expressed these markers. (c) After culturing with or without 10 ng/mL IFN-γ for 5 days, expression patterns of immunologic markers in all cell types are presented as heat maps of the percentage of cells in the total population expressing the marker (see color legend). (d) Flow cytometry results for HLA-DR, HLA-G, HLA-E, PD-L1, PD-L2, and Fas were selectively shown. Nonspecific fluorescence was gated by using respective isotype-matched monoclonal-antibody controls.

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