Established Methods On How to Study Tissue Resident Mesenchymal Stromal Cells

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Dr. Marine Theret

School of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, 2222 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada

Dr. Theret obtained her PhD in 2015 from Paris Descartes University, working on the regulation of macrophage and muscle stem cell metabolism during skeletal muscle regeneration. She moved to Canada in 2016 and joined the Rossi laboratory at the School of Biomedical Engineering at the UBC where she first worked on the fibrotic differentiation of fibro-adipogenic progenitors in muscular dystrophies. She is now a Research Associate and focuses on the inflammatory functions of tissue resident mesenchymal stromal cells at homeostasis and in chronic diseases.

Dr. Hesham Soliman

Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, 2222 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada and Aspect Biosystems, 781 W 75th Ave, Vancouver, BC V6P 6P2, Canada and School of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Hesham Soliman obtained his PhD degree in 2012 from the University of British Columbia during which he studied the role of the actin cytoskeleton and the signaling pathways that control it in diabetic cardiomyopathy. Following that, he joined Dr. Fabio Rossi’s laboratory at the School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC and studied the heterogeneity of mesenchymal stromal cells in the heart at single cell resolution. He also investigated the role of a subset of mesenchymal stromal cells in the heart called fibro-adipogenic progenitors in cardiac pathologies such as myocardial infarction and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. Currently, he is a lead Research Scientist in 3D Bioprinting and Tissue Engineering at Aspect Biosystems.

Collection Overview

The mounting efforts to clearly resolve the identity, fate, and function of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have been made since their description 50 years ago. Known under varied names, such as mesenchymal stem cell, fibro-adipogenic progenitors, or fibroblasts - the MSC is at the center of attention. Indeed, MSCs not only act as a guard of tissue integrity in homeostasis or damage sensors but also have a primordial function towards other tissue resident stem cells. Unlike most stem/progenitor cells, MSCs play major roles in maintenance of the stroma, tissue regeneration, immune modulation, and trophic support of the parenchyma. Alternatively, aberrant activation of MSCs has been implicated in many pathologies involving fibrosis/scarring or fibrofatty degeneration such as muscular dystrophies, myocardial infarction and pulmonary fibrosis. MSCs have an ability to differentiate along multiple mesenchymal lineages and have a central role in tissue regeneration or remodeling due to which they have been extensively studied, especially as potential cellular regenerative therapies and as targets for pharmacological interventions to treat several diseases. Due to this, it is imperative that any inherent heterogeneity within this population is dissected and methods to purify and characterize it are studied, compared and standardized.

The goal of this Method Collection is to highlight state-of-the-art methods used by different investigators to purify MSCs and study their properties in different tissues, as well as to modulate their activity and lineage potential both in vitro and in vivo.