Gene marker may improve odds of stem cell therapies for disease

A single tumor-suppressor gene may provide a unique marker for senescence in Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in vitro, while also playing a role in moving MSCs into senescence, researchers at the Human Health Foundation and the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine report.

Their work was published in Stem Cells and Development .

The finding is important, since MSCs are currently being tested in cell and gene therapy for a number of human diseases.

When injected into the body, MSCs have the unique ability to differentiate into a variety of cells. But before they can be employed for therapeutic uses, the stem cells must be cultivated in vitro. During this process, MSCs are often compromised when they enter senescence, or aging, which limits their capacity to proliferate and differentiate into new tissues, making them useless for treatment.

In the current study, researchers studied senescent MSCs drawn from rats in vitro. MSCs in senescence showed a downregulation, or decrease, in several genes involved in stem cell self-renewal and DNA repair, including Rb1 and p107 gene expression.