Homogeneity evaluation of mesenchymal stem cells based on electrotaxis analysis

Stem cell therapy that can restore function to damaged tissue, avoid host rejection and reduce inflammation throughout body without use of immunosuppressive drugs. The established methods were used to identify and to isolate specific stem cell markers by FACS or by immunomagnetic cell separation. The procedures for distinguishing population of stem cells took a time and needed many preparations. Here we suggest an electrotaxis analysis as a new method to evaluate the homogeneity of mesenchymal stem cells which can observe the stem cell population in culture condition and wide use to various types of stem cells. Human mesenchymal stem cell, adipose derived stem cell, tonsil derived stem cell and osteogenic differentiated cells migrated toward anode but the migration speed of differentiated cells was significantly decreased versus that of stem cells. In mixture of stem cells and differentiated cells condition, we identified that the ratio of stem cell versus differentiated cell was matched with the homogeneity evaluation data of stem cells based on electrotaxis analysis. As a result, our evaluation tool has the possibility of the wide use to stem cell homogeneity evaluation and might be used as the stem cell quality control during stem cell culture without any additional antibodies.