“Humanized” Stem Cell Culture Techniques: The Animal Serum Controversy

Table 1

Typical MSC characteristics (retention/loss) in various types of Media.

MSC characteristics	Foetal bovine serum	Chemically defined media	Human serum	Umbilical cord blood serum	Human platelet lysate (HPL)/ platelet-rich plasma (PRP)
Adherence to plastic	+	+^1	+^2	+	+
Morphology	Spindle-shaped	More spindle-shaped	Smaller and more spindle-shaped	Elongated and more spindle- shaped^3	Elongated and more spindle- shaped (hPL). Smaller cells in PRP
Surface antigen expression
CD105	+	+	+	+	+
CD73	+	+	+	+	+
CD90*	+	+	+	+	+
CD45	−	−	−	−	−
CD34	−	−	−	−	−
CD14/CD11b	−	−	+/−^4	NA	−
CD79a/CD19	−	−	NA	NA	−
HLA-DR	−	+/− ^4	−	−	−
Tri-lineage differentiation	+	+^5	+^6	+^7	+
CFU-f efficiency	Large and well spread	Varies with media components	Densely packed. Mesh-like growth pattern in later passages	Densely packed larger colonies^3	Densely packed (hPL and PRP) Mesh-like growth pattern in later passages (PRP)
Doubling time	76–89 hrs	↓ ^4	↓	↓	↓
Cost and availability	Available from certain countries, ~500 to 800 USD for 500ml.	Commercially available, expensive	Available and cheaper	Available and cheaper	Available and cheaper
References	[3, 4]	[5, 6]	[4, 7–9]	[4, 10]	[7, 11–13]

*Effect on immunosuppressive property of hMSC [2].
NA: data not available.
¹When adhesion factors are added.
²Decreases in later passages.
³ Author’s observation. Unpublished data.
⁴ Affected by the factors added in the medium.
⁵ Defined media for each specific differentiation are available.
⁶ Differentiation of hMSCs into osteoblasts was enhanced [4].
⁷ Enhanced differentiation of hMSCs into osteogenic lineage and suppressed adipogenesis also seen [10]. No data available for chondrogenic differentiation in UCBS-cultured MSCs.