Histological Profiling of the Human Umbilical Cord: A Potential Alternative Cell Source in Tissue Engineering

This work was supported by the Spanish Plan Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica, Desarrollo e Innovacion Tecnologica (I+D+i) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Grants FIS PI21/0980, FIS PI18/0331, FIS PI18/0332, FIS PI20/0317, FIS PI20/318, and ICI19-00024, co-financed by FEDER funds (European Union). It was also supported by grant PE-0395-2019 from Consejeria de Salud y Familias, Junta de Andalucia, Spain, and grants B-CTS-450-UGR20 and A-CTS-498-UGR18 (Proyectos de I+D+i en el marco del Programa Operativo FEDER Andalucia 2014-2020) from the University of Granada, Consejeria de Transformacion Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades, Junta de Andalucia and European Union and P18-RT-5059 from Consejeria de Transformacion Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades, Junta de Andalucia. Co-financed by FEDER funds (European Union).
The embryonic development of the human umbilical cord (hUC) is complex, and different regions can be identified in this structure. The aim of this work is to characterize the hUC at in situ and ex vivo levels to stablish their potential use in vascular regeneration. Human umbilical cords were obtained and histologically prepared for in the situ analysis of four hUC regions (intervascular—IV, perivascular—PV, subaminoblastic—SAM, and Wharton’s jelly—WH), and primary cell cultures of mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSC) isolated from each region were obtained. The results confirmed the heterogeneity of the hUC, with the IV and PV zones tending to show the higher in situ expression of several components of the extracellular matrix (collagens, proteoglycans, and glycosaminoglycans), vimentin, and MSC markers (especially CD73), although isolation and ex vivo culture resulted in a homogeneous cell profile. Three vascular markers were positive in situ, especially vWF, followed by CD34 and CD31, and isolation and culture revealed that the region associated with the highest expression of vascular markers was IV, followed by PV. These results confirm the heterogeneity of the hUC and the need for selecting cells from specific regions of the hUC for particular applications in tissue engineering.
Spanish Plan Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica, Desarrollo e Innovacion Tecnologica (I+D+i) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Instituto de Salud Carlos III) FIS PI21/0980 FIS PI18/0331 FIS PI18/0332 FIS PI20/0317 FIS PI20/318 ICI19-00024
European Commission
Junta de Andalucia PE-0395-2019
University of Granada B-CTS-450-UGR20 CTS-498-UGR18
Consejeria de Transformacion Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades
Junta de Andalucia
European Commission Junta de Andalucia P18-RT-5059