Human endometrial stem cells: High-yield isolation and characterization

Background

Menstrual blood is only recently and still poorly studied, but it is an abundant and noninvasive source of highly proliferative mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). However, no appropriate isolation method has been reported due to its high viscosity and high content of clots and desquamated epithelium.

Methods

We studied three different isolation approaches and their combinations: ammonium-containing lysing buffer, distilled water and gradient-density centrifugation. We tested the proliferative capacity, morphology, surface markers and pluripotency of the resulting cells.

Results

Our isolation method yields up to four million nucleated cells per milliliter of initial blood, of which about 0.2–0.3% are colony-forming cells expressing standard mesenchymal markers CD90, CD105 and CD73, but not expressing CD45, CD34, CD117, CD133 or HLA-G. The cells have high proliferative potential (doubling in 26?h) and the ability to differentiate into adipocytes and osteocytes. Early endometrial MSCs (eMSCs) express epithelial marker cytokeratin 7 (CK7). CK7 is easily induced in later passages in a prohepatic environment. We show for the first time that a satisfactory and stable yield of eMSCs is observed throughout the whole menstrual period (5 consecutive days) of a healthy woman.

Discussion

The new cost/yield adequate method allows isolation from menstrual blood a relatively homogenous pool of highly proliferative MSCs, which seem to be the best candidates for internal organ therapy due to their proepithelial background (early expression of CK7 and its easy induction in later passages) and for mass cryobanking due to their high yield and availability.