Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) hold promise for treating different equine conditions but enter senescence during culture. Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to derive MSC-like cells (iMSCs) can increase cell availability and diminish the need for invasive and repeated tissue harvesting. While human iMSCs are intensively studied, research on equine iMSCs (eqiMSCs) is very limited and has focused on strategies for spontaneous differentiation to obtain these cells. The aim of this study was to obtain MSC-like cells from equine iPSCs (eqiPSCs) by directing their differentiation via the neural crest pathway. The resulting eqiMSCs downregulated pluripotent gene expression compared to originating eqiPSCs, and the majority of lines met most of the standard criteria for tissue-derived MSCs (immunophenotype and tri-lineage differentiation potential). Nevertheless, eqiMSCs showed some differences from primary equine MSCs, possibly due to their different developmental origin, and displayed certain inter-line variability, which might be related to the different kinetics of independent eqiPSC lines. This study demonstrates for the first time that equine MSC-like cells (eqiMSCs) can be derived from eqiPSCs by directing their differentiation through the neural crest pathway. This constitutes an important advancement towards more sustainable sources of therapeutic cells in veterinary medicine and warrants further exploration of the functional characteristics of these novel cells.
Bernad et al. (Tue,) studied this question.