Deconstructing transcriptional variations and their effects on immunomodulatory function among human mesenchymal stromal cells

BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-based therapies are being actively investigated in various inflammatory disorders. However, functional variability among MSCs cultured in vitro will lead to distinct therapeutic efficacies. Until now, the mechanisms behind immunomodulatory functional variability in MSCs are still unclear. METHODS: We systemically investigated transcriptomic variations among MSC samples derived from multiple tissues to reveal their effects on immunomodulatory functions of MSCs. We then analyzed transcriptomic changes of MSCs licensed with INFγ to identify potential molecular mechanisms that result in distinct MSC samples with different immunomodulatory potency. RESULTS: MSCs were clustered into distinct groups showing different functional enrichment according to transcriptomic patterns. Differential expression analysis indicated that different groups of MSCs deploy common regulation networks in response to inflammatory stimulation, while expression variation of genes in the networks could lead to different immunosuppressive capability. These different responsive genes also showed high expression variability among unlicensed MSC samples. Finally, a gene panel was derived from these different responsive genes and was able to regroup unlicensed MSCs with different immunosuppressive potencies. CONCLUSION: This study revealed genes with expression variation that contribute to immunomodulatory functional variability of MSCs and provided us a strategy to identify candidate markers for functional variability assessment of MSCs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13287-020-02121-8.