Swiss Paraplegic Research 1 article published in JoVE Developmental Biology An Enzymatic Method to Rescue Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Clotted Bone Marrow Samples Philipp Schlaefli*1, Alessandro Bertolo*1, Cherry Malonzo1, Tobias Poetzel2, Martin Baur3, Frank Steffen4, Jivko Stoyanov1 1Swiss Paraplegic Research, 2Orthopaedics and Spinal Surgery, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, 3Department of Neurosurgery, Lucerne Cantonal Hospital (LUKS), 4Section of Small Animal Surgery/Neurology, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich Mesenchymal stem cells are usually obtained from bone marrow and require expansion culture. When samples clot before processing, a protocol using the (enzymatic) thrombolytic drug urokinase can be applied to degrade the clot. Thus, cells are released and available for expansion culture. This protocol provides a rapid and inexpensive alternative to resampling.
