Visualizing Activated Myofibroblasts Resulting from Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that exhibit two main characteristics which define stem cells: self-renewal and differentiation. MSCs can migrate to sites of injury, inflammation, and tumor. Moreover, MSCs undergo myofibroblast-like differentiation, including increased production of α-SMA in response to transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), a growth factor commonly secreted by tumor cells to evade immune surveillance. Based on our previous findings, hMSCs become activated and resemble carcinoma-associated myofibroblasts upon prolonged exposure to a conditioned medium from MDAMB231 human breast cancer cells. In this section, we show using immunofluorescence that keratinocyte-conditioned medium (KCM) induces differentiation of MSCs to resemble dermal myofibroblast-like cells with punctate vinculin staining and F-actin filaments.