“…When the adherent cells formed colonies and grew to 80 % confluence, half of the cells harvested were used for RT-PCR, and half were subcultured until passage 4. The three media used for cultivation of hBMSCs were described previously (Zhu et al 2010). In brief, Medium 1 (M1) was composed of 58 % low-glucose (1 g/l) Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM; Gibco), 40 % MCDB-201 medium (Sigma-Aldrich), 19 insulin transferrin selenium (Sigma-Aldrich), 2 9 10 -8 M dexamethasone (Sigma-Aldrich), 10 -4 M ascorbic acid 2-phosphate (Sigma-Aldrich), 2 % gentamicin (Pan-Biotech GmbH, Aidenbach, Germany), 2 % fetal calf serum (FCS; Biochrom AG, Berlin, Germany), 10 ng/ml epidermal growth factor (Strathmann Biotec AG, Hamburg, Germany), 10 ng/ml platelet-derived growth factor-BB (Strathmann), 100 U penicillin, and 1,000 U streptomycin (Gibco).…”