Fast transdifferentiation of human Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells into neurospheres and nerve-like cells

Background: The human mesenchymal stem cells derived from Wharton's jelly tissue (hWJ-MSCs) represent a tool for cell-based therapies and regenerative medicine. hWJ-MSCs form neurospheres (NSs) within 3-7 days. No data is available to establish the neuro-phenotypic markers and time of formation of nerve-like (NLCs) and glial cells from NSs derived from hWJ-MSCs. New method: hWJ-MSCs were incubated with Fast-N-Spheres medium for 24 and 72 h. The new formed NSs were in turn incubated with forskolin in neurogenic NeuroForsk medium for 1-7 days. Results: hWJ-MSCs cultured with Fast-N-Spheres medium trans-differentiated into NSs in just 24 h compared to 72 h for hWJ-MSCs cultured with classic growth factor medium. The NSs generated from the Fast-N-Spheres medium expressed reduced levels SOX2, OCT4 and NANOG, as markers of pluripotency compared to undifferentiated hWJ-MSCs. The formed NSs exposed to NeuroForsk medium differentiated into NLCs in 4 days as evidenced by high levels of protein expression of the neuronal markers, and no expression of the glial marker GFAP. Comparison with existing method(s): Currently, the formation and harvest of NSs is expensive and time consuming. Published protocols require 3-7 days to form NSs from whole human umbilical cord MSCs. We report for the first time, to our knowledge, the differentiation of NSs-derived from hWJ-MSCs into NLCs. Conclusions: The fastest method to obtain NSs and NLCs from hWJ-MSCs takes only five days using the two-step incubation media Fast-N-Spheres and NeuroForsk. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.