• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.323-329
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• 2023

Peripheral blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells (PB-MSCs) have shown promise in cell-based therapy, as they can be harvested with ease through minimally invasive procedures. This study aimed to isolate PB-MSCs from foals and mares and to compare the proliferation and cellular characteristics of the PB-MSCs between the two groups. Six pairs of mares and their foals were used in this study. MSCs were isolated from PB by direct plating in a tissue culture medium, and cell proliferation (population doubling time [PDT], and colony-forming unit-fibroblast assay [CFU-F]), and characterization (morphology, plastic adhesiveness, colony formation, trilineage differentiation) were examined. There was no significant difference in the PB-MSC yield, CFU-F, and PDT between the mares and foals. PB-MSCs from both mares and foals showed typical MSC characteristics in terms of spindle-shaped morphology, plastic adhesive properties, formation of colonies, trilineage differentiation. These results suggest that PB-MSCs isolated from horses, both adult horses, and foals, can be used for equine cell-based therapy.

• 대한생식의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.50-52
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• 2006

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2018

In the last several decades, cell therapy research has increased worldwide. Many studies have been conducted on cell therapy, and have revealed that transplanted cells did not survive for long, and implanted cells remained inactive causing immune rejection depending on the patient's condition. Therefore, studies on cell-free therapy need to be conducted. To overcome these limitations, an alternative is the use of supernatant from cells, called "conditioned media (CM)." During in vitro cell culture, culture media supply nutrients to maintain cell characteristics and viability. In the culture, cells not only consume nutrients but also release beneficial proteins and substances, which are called "secretome." CM from cells can be stored for a long time and is easy to handle. Moreover, secretome in CM can also be measured; exact amount of secretome is important to set the standard value for disease treatment. Here, we reviewed studies on CM and confirmed that various secretomes from CM were identified in these studies. Moreover, these findings could benefit cell and animal studies in future. In conclusion, CM could be a potential candidate for an alternative to cell therapy.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.175-182
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• 2021

Pluripotent stem cells could self-renew and differentiate into various cells. In particular, porcine pluripotent stem cells are useful for preclinical therapy, transgenic animals, and agricultural usage. These stem cells have naïve and primed pluripotent states. Naïve pluripotent stem cells represented by mouse embryonic stem cells form chimeras after blastocyst injection. Primed pluripotent stem cells represented by mouse epiblast stem cells and human embryonic stem cells. They could not produce chimeras after blastocyst injection. Populations of embryonic stem cells are not homogenous; therefore, reporter systems are used to clarify the status of stem cells and to isolate the cells. For this reason, studies of the OCT4 reporter system have been conducted for decades. This review will discuss the naïve and primed pluripotent states and recent progress in the development of porcine OCT4 reporter systems.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.245-255
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• 2019

Stem cells are attracting attention as a key element in future medicine, satisfying the desire to live a healthier life with the possibility that they can regenerate tissue damaged or degenerated by disease or aging. Stem cells are defined as undifferentiated cells that have the ability to replicate and differentiate themselves into various tissues cells. Stem cells, commonly encountered in clinical or preclinical stages, are largely classified into embryonic, adult, and induced pluripotent stem cells. Recently, stem cell transplantation has been frequently applied to the treatment of pain as an alternative or promising approach for the treatment of severe osteoarthritis, neuropathic pain, and intractable musculoskeletal pain which do not respond to conventional medicine. The main idea of applying stem cells to neuropathic pain is based on the ability of stem cells to release neurotrophic factors, along with providing a cellular source for replacing the injured neural cells, making them ideal candidates for modulating and possibly reversing intractable neuropathic pain. Even though various differentiation capacities of stem cells are reported, there is not enough knowledge and technique to control the differentiation into desired tissues in vivo. Even though the use of stem cells is still in the very early stages of clinical use and raises complicated ethical problems, the future of stem cells therapies is very bright with the help of accumulating evidence and technology.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.475-483
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• 2019

The use of stem cells in cell-based therapy has attracted extensive interest in the field of regenerative medicine, and it has been applied to numerous incurable diseases due to the inherent abilities of self-renewal and differentiation. However, there still exist some severe obstacles, such as requirement of cell expansion before the treatment, and low survival at the treated site. To overcome these disadvantages of stem cells, we used the carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 6 (CEACAM 6) gene, which functions to increase cell-cell interaction as well as anti-apoptosis. We first confirmed whether CEACAM 6 is expressed in various cell lines at the protein level (including in stem cells), followed by evaluating and selecting the optimal transfection conditions into stem cells. The CEACAM 6 gene was transfected into stem cells to prolong cell survival and preserve from damage by oxidative stress. After confirming the CEACAM 6 expression in transfected stem cells, the cell survival was assessed under oxidative condition by exposing to hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) to mimic the chronic environment-induced cellular damage. CEACAM 6 expressing stem cells show increased cell viability compared to the non-CEACAM 6 expressing cells. We propose that the application of the CEACAM 6 gene is a potential option, capable of expanding and enhancing the therapeutic effects of stem cells.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.148-151
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• 2019

The dose of CD34+ cells is known to influence the outcome of allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) and/or T-cell-depleted transplantation. A previous study proposed that $2{\times}10^6\;CD34+\;cells/kg$ is the ideal minimum dose for allogeneic transplantation, although lower doses did not preclude successful therapy. In the case we present here, CD34+ cells were collected from a matched sibling donor on the day of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; however, the number of cells was not sufficient for transplantation. Consequently, PBSCs were collected three additional times and were infused along with cord blood cells from the donor that were cryopreserved at birth. The cumulative dose of total nuclear cells and CD34+ cells was $15.9{\times}10^8\;cells/kg$ and $0.95{\times}10^6\;cells/kg$, respectively. White blood cells from this patient were engrafted on day 12. In summary, we report successful engraftment after infusion of multiple low doses of CD34+ cells in a patient with severe aplastic anemia.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.203-213
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• 2018

Tumor undergo uncontrolled, excessive proliferation leads to hypoxic microenvironment. To fulfill their demand for nutrient, and oxygen, tumor angiogenesis is required. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) have been known to the main source of angiogenesis because of their potential to differentiation into endothelial cells. Therefore, understanding the mechanism of EPC-mediated angiogenesis in hypoxia is critical for development of cancer therapy. Recently, mitochondrial dynamics has emerged as a critical mechanism for cellular function and differentiation under hypoxic conditions. However, the role of mitochondrial dynamics in hypoxia-induced angiogenesis remains to be elucidated. In this study, we demonstrated that hypoxia-induced mitochondrial fission accelerates EPCs bioactivities. We first investigated the effect of hypoxia on EPC-mediated angiogenesis. Cell migration, invasion, and tube formation was significantly increased under hypoxic conditions; expression of EPC surface markers was unchanged. And mitochondrial fission was induced by hypoxia time-dependent manner. We found that hypoxia-induced mitochondrial fission was triggered by dynamin-related protein Drp1, specifically, phosphorylated DRP1 at Ser637, a suppression marker for mitochondrial fission, was impaired in hypoxia time-dependent manner. To confirm the role of DRP1 in EPC-mediated angiogenesis, we analyzed cell bioactivities using Mdivi-1, a selective DRP1 inhibitor, and DRP1 siRNA. DRP1 silencing or Mdivi-1 treatment dramatically reduced cell migration, invasion, and tube formation in EPCs, but the expression of EPC surface markers was unchanged. In conclusion, we uncovered a novel role of mitochondrial fission in hypoxia-induced angiogenesis. Therefore, we suggest that specific modulation of DRP1-mediated mitochondrial dynamics may be a potential therapeutic strategy in EPC-mediated tumor angiogenesis.

• BMB Reports
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.505-515
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• 2021

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) include human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) derived from blastocysts and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) generated from somatic cell reprogramming. Due to their self-renewal ability and pluripotent differentiation potential, hPSCs serve as an excellent experimental platform for human development, disease modeling, drug screening, and cell therapy. Traditionally, hPSCs were considered to form a homogenous population. However, recent advances in single cell technologies revealed a high degree of variability between individual cells within a hPSC population. Different types of heterogeneity can arise by genetic and epigenetic abnormalities associated with long-term in vitro culture and somatic cell reprogramming. These variations initially appear in a rare population of cells. However, some cancer-related variations can confer growth advantages to the affected cells and alter cellular phenotypes, which raises significant concerns in hPSC applications. In contrast, other types of heterogeneity are related to intrinsic features of hPSCs such as asynchronous cell cycle and spatial asymmetry in cell adhesion. A growing body of evidence suggests that hPSCs exploit the intrinsic heterogeneity to produce multiple lineages during differentiation. This idea offers a new concept of pluripotency with single cell heterogeneity as an integral element. Collectively, single cell heterogeneity is Janus-faced in hPSC function and application. Harmful heterogeneity has to be minimized by improving culture conditions and screening methods. However, other heterogeneity that is integral for pluripotency can be utilized to control hPSC proliferation and differentiation.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.185-207
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• 2012

Since the Hwang scandal, the South Korean state has expressed often-conflicting interests of encouraging stem cell research and the IVF industry to save the country and introducing the ethical regulation in conformity with "Global Standard." As the tightening ethical regulation of stem cell research has enervated the field of human Embryonic stem cell(hESC) research, somatic stem cells (re-)emerged as an alternative savior that could rescue the future of research communities, bio-industry, practicing doctors, patients and the nation itself from the crisis. The recent literature on Korean biotechnology, however, mainly focus on hESC and relatively little attention has been given to the rapidly growing field of research on somatic stem cells like hematopoietic stem cells(HSCs) or Adipose derived stem cells(ASCs). While the hESC therapy is often regarded as experimental and ethically controversial, the HSCs or Mesenchymal stem cell(MSC) therapies have already made their ways into people's everyday life through market without much public discussion. Many ordinary people in South Korea are familiar with the story of patients who survived leukemia with the HSCs treatment; the number of doctors who are actively marketing the ASCs therapies is on the rapid increase; the concept of cosmetic products made from ASCs is gaining popularity among consumers. In this context, this article argues that the current ethical debates solely focusing on hESC or on the state policy and research regulation are too limiting to fully illuminate the politics of stem cell technologies in South Korea.