Neural stem cells differentiation ability of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cells is not altered by cryopreservation

Human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSCs) have potential therapeutic use in the recovery of central nervous system injury for their ability to differentiate into neural stem cells. However, for transformed HUMSCs to be constantly available for use during surgery a reliable method of cell storage is necessary. The present study aimed to determine whether a simple method of cryopreservation by slow cooling with Me2SO had an effect on the proliferation, secretion and differentiation capacities of HUMSCs. These results demonstrate that cryopreservation has no effect on the phenotype, cell cycle, cell proliferation and the ability to secret neurotrophins. Non-cryopreserved and cryopreserved HUMSCs showed the similar ability to differentiate into neural stem-like cells. There results show that cryopreservation by slow cooling with Me2SO is effective to retain the proliferation and neural differentiation ability of HUMSCs, cryopreserved HUMSCs maybe very useful for future clinical applications in neural regenerative medicine. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.