Human Wharton’s jelly-derived mesenchymal stromal cells promote bone formation in immunodeficient mice when administered into a bone microenvironment

BACKGROUND: Wharton’s Jelly (WJ) Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) have emerged as an attractive allogeneic therapy for a number of indications, except for bone-related conditions requiring new tissue formation. This may be explained by the apparent recalcitrance of MSC,WJ to differentiate into the osteogenic lineage in vitro, as opposed to permissive bone marrow (BM)-derived MSCs (MSC,BM) that readily commit to bone cells. Consequently, the actual osteogenic in vivo capacity of MSC,WJ is under discussion. METHODS: We investigated how physiological bone environments affect the osteogenic commitment of recalcitrant MSCs in vitro and in vivo. To this end, MSC of BM and WJ origin were co-cultured and induced for synchronous osteogenic differentiation in vitro using transwells. For in vivo experiments, immunodeficient mice were injected intratibially with a single dose of human MSC and bone formation was evaluated after six weeks. RESULTS: Co-culture of MSC,BM and MSC,WJ resulted in efficient osteogenesis in both cell types after three weeks. However, MSC,WJ failed to commit to bone cells in the absence of MSC,BM’s osteogenic stimuli. In vivo studies showed successful bone formation within the medullar cavity of tibias in 62.5% of mice treated with MSC, WJ. By contrast, new formed trabeculae were only observed in 25% of MSC,BM-treated mice. Immunohistochemical staining of human COXIV revealed the persistence of the infused cells at the site of injection. Additionally, cells of human origin were also identified in the brain, heart, spleen, kidney and gonads in some animals treated with engineered MSC,WJ (eMSC,WJ). Importantly, no macroscopic histopathological alterations, ectopic bone formation or any other adverse events were detected in MSC-treated mice. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that in physiological bone microenvironment, osteogenic commitment of MSC,WJ is comparable to that of MSC,BM, and support the use of off-the-shelf allogeneic MSC,WJ products in bone repair and bone regeneration applications. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12967-023-04672-9.