The Effect of Replacing Fetal Bovine Serum with Platelet Releasate on the Characterization of MSCs

Abstract

Substituting fetal bovine serum (FBS) for platelet derivatives in mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) culture media is a current area of interest in orthopedic regenerative medicine. FBS, commonly used in ex vivo cell expansion, is a xenogen and can cause an immunological response in the subject after transplantation. Our objective was to determine if platelet releasate (PR) is a suitable replacement for FBS in the isolation and expansion of equine MSCs. MSCs were isolated from the raw bone marrow of five horses and plated with media containing either 10% FBS or 10% autologous PR. Cells were passaged three times once a sufficient confluency was reached, then cryopreserved. At each feeding, cells were photographed and counted, and morphology, debris, and confluence were recorded. Compared to cells grown in FBS, the MSCs grown in PR media had poorer morphology and showed signs of osteo-differentiation. Additionally, cells of the PR condition grew larger than those of FBS, which is an indication of 2 cell degradation. From this, we concluded that PR is not a suitable replacement for FBS in equine MSC cell expansion media.