Protein profiling identified key chemokines that regulate the maintenance of human pluripotent stem cells

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 14510 - 13
• Main Authors: Jiang, Zongmin, Li, Yonggang, Ji, Xinglai, Tang, Yiyuli, Yu, Haijing, Ding, Lei, Yu, Min, Cui, Qinghua, Zhang, Ming, Ma, Yanping, Li, Meizhang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06.11.2017; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 13; 13/21; 14; 14/34; 38; 38/77; 42; 631/337; 631/532; Animals; Cell culture; Cell Culture Techniques; Cell Line; Cell Movement - physiology; Chemokines; Chemokines - metabolism; Chemotactic factors; Chemotaxis; Culture Media; Female; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Interleukin 8; IP-10 protein; Leukocyte migration; Male; Mice, Inbred NOD; Mice, SCID; multidisciplinary; Pluripotency; Pluripotent Stem Cells - cytology; Pluripotent Stem Cells - metabolism; Protein Array Analysis; Protein arrays; Proteome; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Stem cells; Teratoma - metabolism; Teratoma - pathology
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-15081-6

Microenvironment (or niche)-providing chemokines regulate many important biological functions of tissue-specific stem cells. However, to what extent chemokines influence human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) is not yet completely understood. In this study, we applied protein array to screen chemokines found within the cytokine pool in the culture supernatant of hPSCs. Our results showed that chemokines were the predominant supernatant components, and came from three sources: hPSCs, feeder cells, and culture media. Chemotaxis analysis of IL-8, SDF-1α, and IP-10 suggested that chemokines function as uniform chemoattractants to mediate in vitro migration of the hPSCs. Chemokines mediate both differentiated and undifferentiated states of hPSCs. However, balanced chemokine signaling tends to enhance their stemness in vitro . These results indicate that chemokines secreted from both stem cells and feeder cells are essential to mobilize hPSCs and maintain their stemness.