Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) have potential to differentiate into osteoblasts and have great prospect in application as new source of seed cells in tissue engineering. However, there are still some problems such as isolation and purification of BMSCs, optimal density for differentiation into osteoblasts, oncogenicity and safety in vivo, deserving more attention and further investigation.
OBJECTIVE: Basic research and clinical application of BMSCs are extensive. There are still lots of problems deserving more concern. This study reviewed characteristics of biology, the induced differentiation, isolation and identification of BMSCs, and clinical applicability of BMSCs.
METHODS: We retrieved the articles in Chinese Journal Full-Text Database, PubMed database and Ovid database published from 1997 to 2010. Key words were “mesenchymal stem cells, osteoblast cells”. Articles concerning BMSCs were included, and literatures of repetitive content and lack of originality were excluded. A total of 31 literatures were obtained for further analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: BMSCs were isolated from bone marrow mainly using density gradient centrifugation, immunology separation and adherence screening method at present. The main technical characteristics of differentiation of BMSCs into osteoblasts are to transfer gene with osteogenic effect into target cells; transcription into mRNA using target cells and translation into protein with osteogenic effects in the lesion site; oneself ossification was promoted through persistent effects of target cells. BMSCs depended on biological stents can rapidly differentiate into osteoblasts and proliferate under suitable induction of growth factors. Patients who suffered from fracture nonunion and metabolic bone diseases have benefited from clinical application of BMSCs.