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

Table 2

Comparison between the general components of serum and human platelet lysate and their effect on hMSC culture.

Components that play a major role in cell culture	Human Platelet Lysate	Human Serum*	Umbilical Cord Blood Serum*	Effects in hMSC Culture
High abundant proteins
(i) Albumin	−	+	+	Major binding protein [40]
(ii) Transferrin	−	+	+	Iron transporter [41]
(iii) Fibronectin	−	+	+	Cell Adhesion and Migration [42]
Growth factors and cytokines
(i) Epidermal growth factor (EGF)	+	+	+	Proliferation and differentiation
(ii) Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)	−	+^1	+^2	Proliferation, differentiation, and migration
(iii) Nerve growth factor (NGF)	−	+	+	Regulation of apoptosis
(iv) Vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF)	+^3	+^1	+^2	Proliferation and migration
(v) Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)	+^3	+	+	Proliferation and migration
(vi) Insulin-like growth factors (IGFs)	+^3	+	+	Proliferation and migration
(vii) Transforming growth factors (TGFs)	+^3	+	+	Proliferation^4 and cell-cell adhesion
(viii) Interleukins	+	+	+	Maintenance of stemness
(ix) Interferons	+	+	+	Differentiation and MHC antigen regulation
References	[37, 38]	[39]	[39]	[36, 37, 43–46]

¹Released as a result of injury in the body.
²May be found due to its role in foetal development.
³Found in higher concentrations.
⁴Higher concentrations inhibit cell proliferation.
*The components of the serum have been identified but have not been characterized. Protein precursors required for maintaining foetal conditions are found only in umbilical cord blood serum [47]. The top 5 abundant proteins present in UCBS and their molecular functions are listed in Table 3.