Can Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Stromal Cells Serve a Starting Material for Myoblasts?

• Main Authors: Yu Ando (Author), Marie Saito (Author), Masakazu Machida (Author), Chikako Yoshida-Noro (Author), Hidenori Akutsu (Author), Masataka Takahashi (Author), Masashi Toyoda (Author), Akihiro Umezawa (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Hindawi Limited, 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 1687-966X; 1687-9678; 10.1155/2017/7541734
• Keywords: Internal medicine; RC31-1245
• Source: Stem Cells International, Vol 2017 (2017)

A large number of myocytes are necessary to treat intractable muscular disorders such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy with cell-based therapies. However, starting materials for cellular therapy products such as myoblasts, marrow stromal cells, menstrual blood-derived cells, and placenta-derived cells have a limited lifespan and cease to proliferate in vitro. From the viewpoints of manufacturing and quality control, cells with a long lifespan are more suitable as a starting material. In this study, we generated stromal cells for future myoblast therapy from a working cell bank of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). The ESC-derived CD105+ cells with extensive in vitro proliferation capability exhibited myogenesis and genetic stability in vitro. These results imply that ESC-derived CD105+ cells are another cell source for myoblasts in cell-based therapy for patients with genetic muscular disorders. Since ESCs are immortal, mesenchymal stromal cells generated from ESCs can be manufactured at a large scale in one lot for pharmaceutical purposes.