Effects of Hypoxia on Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) are distributed in many parts of the human body, including the bone marrow, placenta, umbilical cord, fat, and nasal mucosa. One of the unique features of MSCs is their multidirectional differentiation potential, including the ability to undergo osteogenesis, adipogenesis, and chondrogenesis, and to produce neurons, endothelial cells, Schwann cells, medullary nucleus cells, cardiomyocytes, and alveolar epithelial cells. MSCs have thus become a hot research topic in recent years. Numerous studies have investigated the differentiation of MSCs into various types of cells in vitro and their application to numerous fields. However, most studies have cultured MSCs under atmospheric oxygen tension with an oxygen concentration of 21%, which does not reflect a normal physiological state, given that the oxygen concentration generally used in vitro is four to ten times that to which MSCs would be exposed in the body. We therefore review the growing number of studies exploring the effect of hypoxic preconditioning on the differentiation of MSCs.