Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stromal Cells for Cartilage Regeneration Applications

Table 1

Comparative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different stem cell populations used for cartilage regeneration.

Source	Advantages	Disadvantages	Ref.
ESCs	Pluripotent; Chondrocytes differentiation capacity; Synthesis of cartilage ECM	Difficulty of controlling ESCs differentiation; Ethical concerns; Risk of immune rejection; Risk of teratoma formation	[99]
iPSCs	Pluripotent; Chondrocytes differentiation capacity; Synthesis of cartilage ECM; No ethical concerns	Complex and expensive iPSC generation procedures; Risk of immune rejection; Risk of teratoma formation	[100]
BM-MSCS	Multipotent; Chondrocytes differentiation capacity; Synthesis of cartilage ECM; No ethical concerns; Low immunogenicity	Invasive isolation procedure with risk of infection; Low isolation yield (about 1 in 1 × 10^5 cells in the BM); Donor age affects initial yield of isolation and the proliferative and differentiation properties; Sign of senescence from passage 4	[101]
AT-MSCs	Multipotent; Chondrocytes differentiation capacity; Synthesis of cartilage ECM; No ethical concerns; Low immunogenicity; Isolation yield 500 times more than BM-MSCs	Invasive isolation procedure with risk of infection; Heterogeneity of AT-MSCs extracted from different body sites; Sign of senescence from passage 8	[101]
UC-MSCs	Pluripotent without teratoma formation risk; Chondrocytes differentiation capacity; Synthesis of cartilage ECM; No ethical concerns; Low immunogenicity; No risk for the donor; High isolation yield (about 1 × 10^4 cells from 1 cm of cord); No sign of senescence or abnormality over 16 passages; 300 fold expansions reached within 6-7 passages	Limited knowledge about the UC-MSCs populations	[102]
IPFSCs	Multipotent; High chondrogenic potential	Limited source of tissue (7.5 million cells from 5 g of tissue)	[103]
SD-MSCs	Multipotent; Higher chondrogenic potential than BM-MSCs; Higher colony-forming potential and proliferation rate than BM- and AT-MSCs	Limited source of tissue (knee: 10.5 ± 8.1 × 10^3 cells/mg; hip: 3.1 ± 2.2 × 10^3 cells/mg)	[104]

AT-MSCs: adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs); BM-MSCs: bone marrow-derived MSCs; ESCs: embryonic stem cells; IPFSCs: infrapatellar fat pad-derived stem cells; iPSCs: induced pluripotent stem cells; UC-MSCs: umbilical cord-derived MSCs; SD-MSCs: synovium-derived MSCs.