Background
Human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have been widely advocated to clinical use. Human skin dermis-derived fibroblasts shared similar cellular morphology and biological characteristics to MSCs, while it still keeps elusive whether fibroblasts are functionally equivalent to MSCs for therapeutic use.
Conclusion
Human skin dermis-derived fibroblasts were a kind of functional MSCs with functionally equivalent therapeutic efficacy in treating specific complications, indicating fibroblasts potentially had the same lineage hierarchy of origin as MSCs and had a remarkable potential as an alternative to MSCs in the treatment of a variety of diseases.
Methods
We isolated various fibroblasts derived from human foreskins (HFFs) and human double-fold eyelids (HDF) and MSCs derived from human umbilical cords (UC-MSCs), and then comprehensively investigated their similarities and differences in morphology, surface markers, immunoregulation, multilineage differentiation, transcriptome sequencing, and metabolomics, and therapeutic efficacies in treating 2,4,6-Trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) induced colitis and carbontetrachloride (CCL4) induced liver fibrosis.
Results
Fibroblasts and UC-MSCs shared similar surface markers, strong multilineage differentiation capacity, ability of inhibiting Th1/Th17 differentiation and promoting Treg differentiation in vitro, great similarities in mRNA expression profile and metabolites, and nearly equivalent therapeutic efficacy on TNBS-induced colitis and CCL4-induced hepatic fibrosis.