Identical, similar or different? Learning about immunomodulatory function of mesenchymal stem cells isolated from various mouse tissues: bone marrow, spleen, thymus and aorta wall

Mesenchymal stem or multipotent stromal cells (MSCs) have been implicated in tissue maintenance and repair and regulating immune effector cells through different mechanisms. These functions in mouse were primarily described for bone marrow (BM)-derived MSCs. To learn more about MSCs of different tissue origin, we compared the immunophenotype, differentiation ability to adipocyte and bone and immunomodulatory activity of MSCs isolated from BM, spleen, thymus and aorta wall of 14-day-old C57Bl/6 mice. The established cell lines fulfilled the requirements described for MSCs in terms of morphology, surface marker expression and differentiation potential although they were distinguishable regarding the expression pattern of the MSC markers and ability generating other cell types. Most importantly, a remarkable diversity was shown in the capacity of inhibition of mitogen- and alloantigen-induced T-cell proliferation, since BM- and spleen-derived MSCs were the most powerful aorta-derived MSCs were less effective, whereas thymus-derived mesenchymal cells were unable to block T-cell growth in vitro. Accordingly, BM, spleen and aorta, but not thymus-derived MSCs, in combination with BM hematopoietic cells were equally efficient to prevent streptozotocin-induced diabetes in vivo. These findings suggested that MSCs residing in different organs might stem from common ancestor; however, once populating into a given tissue microenvironment, they acquire specific properties mainly in the term of the immunoregulatory function.