Substrate-independent immunomodulatory characteristics of mesenchymal stem cells in three-dimensional culture

PLoS One. 2018 Nov 8;13(11):e0206811. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206811. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) play important roles in tissue regeneration, and multi-lineage differentiation and immunomodulation are two major characteristics of MSCs that are utilized in stem cell therapy. MSCs in vivo have a markedly different three-dimensional (3D) niche compared to the traditional two-dimensional (2D) culture in vitro. A 3D scaffold is predicted to provide an artificial 3D environment similar to the in vivo environment. Significant changes in MSC differentiation are shown to be occurred when under 3D culture. However, the immunomodulatory characteristics of MSCs under 3D culture remain unknown. In this study, 3D culture systems were constructed using different substrates to evaluate the common immunomodulatory characteristics of MSCs. Compared to the MSCs under 2D culture, the MSCs under 3D culture, which had higher stemness and maintained cell phenotype, showed altered immunophenotypic pattern. Gene expression profile analysis at mRNA and protein level detected by gene chip and protein chip, respectively, further revealed the difference between 3D cultured MSCs and 2D cultured MSCs, which was mainly concentrated in the immunoregulation related aspects. Moreover, the immunoregulatory role of 3D culture was confirmed by our immunosuppressive experiments. These findings demonstrated that the immunomodulatory capacities of MSCs were enhanced by the 3D geometry of substrates.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Culture Techniques / methods*
  • Cell Differentiation / immunology*
  • Cell Proliferation
  • Guided Tissue Regeneration
  • Humans
  • Immunomodulation*
  • Mesenchymal Stem Cells / immunology*
  • Tissue Scaffolds

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (http://www.most.gov.cn/eng/; 2011CB965001 and 2011CB710905; JW D); the “Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences” (the Chinese Academy of Sciences, http://english.cas.cn/; XDA01030000; JW D). JW D: substantial contribution to conception and design, financial support, analysis and interpretation of data, final approval of the version to be published.