Abstract
Particular somatic cells, namely cumulus cells (CCs) that support the oocyte maturation, fertility, and viability by providing the nutrients and energy to the oocyte envelop the mammalian oocyte. In this study, discarded human cumulus tissues were used to reveal the value of hyaluronic acid-rich CCs on several cellular events, including differentiation. Conditioned media, recovered from the primary culture of CCs, were introduced to the human nucleus pulposus cells (hNPCs) which were functionally distorted because of the loss of chondrogenecity. Enlightening the impact of cumulus conditioned media (CCM) on wound healing and angiogenesis was also investigated. In line with these goals, differentiation of hNPCs into chondrocytes with CCM as the basal medium containing traditional differentiation agents was induced upon isolation and characterization of hCCs and hNPCs. The effects were detected by differentiation-specific cell stains and gene expression analyses. Scratch and tube formation assays were performed to detect the effect of CCM on wound healing and angiogenesis. Our results showed that cumulus cell-conditioned media promoted the chondrogenesis and osteogenesis of hNPCs. A significant increase in angiogenesis and ability for wound closure was detected only in groups cultured in CCM compared to the control. These findings demonstrated that CCM might be used in therapeutics.