Amniotic and Umbilical Cord of Transgenic Pigs as an Alternative Source of Stem Cells

The placenta is worthy of consideration as a source of tissues for transplantation. Porcine material preparation allows significantly more grafts to be obtained than human material. Amniotic cells are a very practicable stem cell type and easy to obtain with great potential, compared with, for instance, adipose-derived stem cells. The aim of this paper was to verify if porcine transgenic amnion and umbilical cord could be as effective for xenotransplantation of stem cells as human material.

Oxytocin was administered to the sows on the day the material was obtained. The obtained material was divided by weight into 4 relatively equal parts, which were transferred into 1 of 4 containers. The containers had different transport media and a concentration of antibiotics. After cell isolation by homogenization, the number of live, dead, and apoptotic cells was assessed.

Maintaining the sterility when obtaining material from breeding pigs was the biggest problem. Transport medium, despite the addition of antibiotics, was in most cases infected. Tests revealed that porcine cells have a tendency to leave tissue material and adhere to plastic as human cells do. Porcine cells are also fibroblast like, which can suggest that these cells might be tested for the presence of mesenchymal stem cells. However, some differences are visible in all parameters, which can result from contamination of material or improper transport medium. There were significant differences between viability and apoptotic cell number in human and transgenic pig cells isolated from both sources---amniotic membrane and umbilical cord.