Cell composition of the primary culture of fetal liver

Area of Science:

• Stem cell biology
• Developmental biology
• Cell biology

Background:

• Fetal liver is a recognized source of multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs).
• Standard isolation of MSCs relies on plastic adherence, which can lead to contamination.
• Primary cultures may contain various cell types beyond MSCs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize the cellular composition of primary rat fetal liver cell cultures.
• To investigate the impact of passaging on the purity of mesenchymal stromal cell cultures.

Main Methods:

• Primary cell culture from rat fetal liver.
• Plastic adherence for cell isolation.
• Cellular characterization using phenotypic markers (e.g., cytokeratin-19).
• Monitoring cell populations during serial passaging.

Main Results:

• Primary cultures contained fibroblasts with MSC characteristics, skeletal muscle precursors, myofibroblasts, and epitheliocytes (expressing cytokeratin-19).
• Epitheliocytes and cytokeratin-19 expression were also observed in some fibroblast-like cells, suggesting epithelio-mesenchymal transition.
• Subsequent passaging led to the enrichment of fibroblast-like cells, becoming the predominant cell type.

Conclusions:

• Standard plastic adherence methods for isolating fetal liver MSCs result in mixed cell populations.
• Mesenchymal stromal cells derived from fetal liver are prone to contamination by non-MSCs.
• Cell passaging effectively purifies cultures, yielding predominantly fibroblast-like cells with MSC characteristics.