Abstract-In this study we performed comprehensive biological and morphological analysis of dermis-derived stem cells and compared them with bone marrow-and adipose tissue-derived stem cells. According to obtained results we can emphasize that analyzed somatic stem cells shared morphological features, expression of surface antigens as well as growth kinetics, but differ in chondrogenic potential. Skin-derived stem cells have an inferior potential for chondrogenic differentiation. So this fact decreases their potential for cartilage tissue engineering.Index Terms-Biological characteristics, chondrogenic differentiation, morphology, somatic stem cells.
I. INTRODUCTIONDamaged or lost articular cartilage as a consequence of inborn anomaly, pathological process or trauma leads to progressive debilitation, which has major impact on the life quality of the affected individuals in all age groups. It is difficult to treat these patients, because mature articular cartilage has a limited self-repairing potential [1]. Small defects are regenerated by migration of chondrocytes, while full-thickness damages are healed by formation of inferior fibrocartilage [2]. However, in many cases osteoarthritis is developed and surgical intervention is often the only option. Unfortunately, current treatment techniques for cartilage reparation are insufficient and it is not possible to obtain expected results.Recently, somatic stem cells / mesenchymal stem cellsMSCs represent big hope in this respect. Stem cells are found in all tissues of higher multicellular organisms during all stages of ontogenesis. They are primitive undifferentiated cells with the unique ability of long term self-renewing. Another important feature of MSCs is their plasticity -the potential for terminal differentiation into other cell types. Therefore, they play an important role in the embryonic Manuscript received May 10, 2013; revised July 16, 2013 development, replacing worn out cells and regeneration of damaged tissues [3].MSCs are adherent and have a fibroblast-like morphology. They are also able to produce colony forming units-fibroblast (CFU-F) when cultured in vitro. They are positive for a variety of surface markers, including CD29, CD44, CD56, CD73, CD90, CD105, CD166, CD271, STRO-1 and Sca-1. On the contrary, they are negative for CD31, CD34, CD45 and HLA-DR [4]. More recently, it was shown that MSCs express markers which are typical for embryonic stem cells, including OCT4, Nanog and Sox2. These findings provide clarification of their undifferentiated state [5].Bone marrow was the first source of MSCs but in respect to clinical application it has several disadvantages, including invasive and painful sampling procedure and the decline in MSCs number and differentiation potential with increasing age of donor [6]. For that reason, alternative sources of MSCs are subject to intensive investigation. In that context, attention turns to adipose tissue which is abundant in human body and represents reliable and relatively safe source of MSCs (one gram of adipose...