[Abstract]
The unavailability of sufficient numbers of human primary cells is a major roadblock
for in vitro repair of bone and/or cartilage, and for performing disease modelling experiments.
Immortalized mesenchymal stromal cells (iMSCs) may be employed as a research tool for avoiding
these problems. The purpose of this review was to revise the available literature on the characteristics
of the iMSC lines, paying special attention to the maintenance of the phenotype of the primary
cells from which they were derived, and whether they are effectively useful for in vitro disease
modeling and cell therapy purposes. This review was performed by searching on Web of Science,
Scopus, and PubMed databases from 1 January 2015 to 30 September 2019. The keywords used
were ALL = (mesenchymal AND (“cell line” OR immortal*) AND (cartilage OR chondrogenesis
OR bone OR osteogenesis) AND human). Only original research studies in which a human iMSC
line was employed for osteogenesis or chondrogenesis experiments were included. After describing
the success of the immortalization protocol, we focused on the iMSCs maintenance of the parental
phenotype and multipotency. According to the literature revised, it seems that the maintenance of
these characteristics is not guaranteed by immortalization, and that careful selection and validation
of clones with particular characteristics is necessary for taking advantage of the full potential of iMSC
to be employed in bone and cartilage-related research.Xunta de Galicia; R2016/036Deputación da Coruña; BINV-CS/2016Xunta de Galicia; R2014/050Xunta de Galicia; CN2012/142Xunta de Galicia; GPC2014/04
