Page 32 - G. Cell differentiation. division. and death

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MCR-P2 PEPTIDE IMPROVES THE THERAPEUTIC POTENTIAL

OF MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS

Soo Bin Lee¹˙#, Ahmed Abdal Dayem¹˙#, Ssang-Goo Cho¹˙*

¹Stem Cell and Regenerative Biotechnology, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Korea

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) considered promising tools for regenerative medicine. Engineering potent coating
substrates for efficient stem cell culture and expansion has garnered the attention of the scientific communities and
stem cell industry recently. In our study, we aim to design various coating mimetics derived from the growth factors

and tested their effect on the proliferation of MSCs. We screened the effects of four growth factor-derived peptides,

namely MCR-P1, MCR-P2, MCR-P3 and MCR-P4 on the proliferation and differentiation of human Wharton’s Jelly
derived MSCs (hWJ-MSCs). Among the tested peptides, MCR-P2 showed a significant enhancement of cell
proliferation and modulation of cell cycle-related markers. Interestingly, hWJ-MSCs cultured into the MCR-P2-coated

plate showed an obvious increase in the osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation in vitro and in vivo using the
collagenase II-induced arthritis mouse model. In sum, our study affords a novel peptide mimetic with proved

impacts on improving the proliferation. Moreover, our novel peptides significantly improved the chondrogenic
differentiation of hWJ-MSCs with robust in vivo anti-arthritis function. This platform is promising to produce the

stem cells with high quality for clinical application.