Down-regulation of CD105 is associated with multi-lineage differentiation in human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells

Umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UCB-MSCs) have multi-lineage differentiation potential, thus highlighting the feasibility of using UCB-MSCs as a valuable source of stem-cells for cell-based therapy. However, there are no well-defined markers for assessment of the multi-potency of UCB-MSCs. Thus, we focused on the identification of suitable markers by examining cell surface protein expressions of UCB-MSCs as their multi-lineage differentiations progressed. The expression of CD105, one of the cell surface proteins, was significantly decreased in differentiated osteoblasts, chondrocytes, adipocytes, and respiratory epithelium, and the portion of CD105-positive cells from 99.4 ± 0.1% to 3.5 ± 1.4%, 3.5 ± 2.3%, 16.7 ± 3.6%, and 2.1 ± 1.5%, respectively. As to such indicators as alkaline phosphatase (ALP), glycosaminoglycan (GAG), oil Red O, and surfactant protein C (SPC), they showed increases, confirming differentiation of UCB-MSCs into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, adipocytes, and respiratory epithelium. This is the first study to demonstrate a negative correlation between expression of CD105 over the time course of multi-lineage differentiation and the degree of differentiation of UCB-MSCs. We propose that CD105 is a useful novel marker to characterize differentiation status of isolated human UCB-MSCs, which will be useful to facilitate the application of such cells in stem-cell therapy.