Abstract
Human Wharton’s jelly stem cells (hWJSCs) are derived from the umbilical cord matrix. These fetal stem cells share similar characteristics with embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and other mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) such as the ability to differentiate, long-term self-renewal, and various stem cell markers expression. However, hWJSCs show significant advantages against ESCs and MSCs due to their behaviour in anti-tumour formation and immune modulatory activity in prospective stem cell treatment. Detailed transcriptome analysis of hWJSCs was performed with Affymetrix U133 plus 2.0 GeneChips and public data was obtained from GEO NCBI. Comparative analysis of early and late passage hWJSCs carried out with human bone-marrow MSC (hBMMSCs) showed that hWJSCs were a better alternative ethical stem cell type to ESCs. Unlike hBMMSCs, the transcriptome profiles of hWJSCs showed few real differences between the various cell line samples and passages. hWJSCs also retain longer expression of more stem cell and germ lineage markers compared to hBMMSCs. In addition, the non-tumour supportive role of hWJSCs and inability to form teratomas in SCID mice are partially accounted for by low expression of the pluripotent stem cell markers POU5F1, SOX2, and NANOG, and the survival factor BIRC5. Significantly, the high expression of cytokines that contribute to activation of various pathways associated with chemotaxis, immune system regulation and cell death were also implicated in the behaviour difference between hWJSCs and hBMMSCs. In summary, the detailed transcriptome analysis presented showed that hWJSCs merit further study as a more suitable alternative to ESCs in stem cell therapy compared to hBMMSCs.