gms | German Medical Science

Objectives: Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are attractive candidates in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Growing evidence suggested that high body mass index (BMI) may affect the functions of BMSCs, resulting in a reduced quality of BMSCs. However, the results were not always consistent. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influences of high BMI on the BMSCs by large sample size.

Methods: For this purpose, BMSCs from 244 donors (at least 20-year-old) were used and divided into 2 groups: normal BMI group (18.5<=BMI< 25.0) and high BMI group (BMI >25). Meanwhile, to explore the effects of BMI on BMSCs from different genders, the population was subdivided into male and female groups, followed by being classified into 2 BMI groups as described above. Then, the cells were analyzed for CFU-F capacity at passages 1 (P1) and 4 (P4), proliferation capacity assessed by duration of P0 to passage P1 and P1 to P2, the potential of differentiation into osteoblasts, adipocytes, and chondrocytes, as well as the expression of 32 antigens. The t-test or Mann-Whitney-U test was used to compare the data between 2 different BMI groups. The Spearman test or the Pearson test was used for the correlation analysis. Data are described as median (Mdn) together with interquartile range (IQR) or mean ± SD (standard deviation). The p< 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results and conclusion: The results demonstrated a significantly reduced CFU-F number of high BMI BMSCs in P4 compared to the normal BMI cells (p = 0.002). Similar results can also be observed in female (p = 0.003) and male subgroups (p = 0.012). Moreover, an obvious negative correlation between BMI and CFU-F number existed in the total group and female subgroup (r=-0.143, p=0.031; r=-0.242, p=0.024). For proliferation capacity, the duration of P0 to P1 of high BMI BMSCs from the total group and male group was significantly less than the normal BMI group (p=0.018 and p=0.004, respectively) and also negatively correlated with BMI (r=-0.179, p=0.006; r=-0.318, p<0.001). Only the duration of P1 to P2 of high BMI male BMSCs increased significantly (p=0.033), accompanied by a positive correlation with BMI (r=0.185, p=0.028). For the differentiation potential, no significant difference was observed in trilineage differentiation between high BMI and normal BMI BMSCs. As for the antigens, high BMI reduced the expression of CD200 and SSEA-4 in female and male BMSCs, respectively but increased the expression of MSCA-1 in male BMSCs. Moreover, BMI related positively to MSCA-1, whereas negatively to SSEA-4 in the male group. In conclusion, high BMI could change the renewal capacity, proliferation efficiency, and expression of certain surface antigens of hBMSCs, but the potential of differentiation appeared to be unaffected.