Adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be readily isolated from bone marrow, expanded in culture and subsequently subjected to differentiation into various connective tissue lineages. In general, for animal studies separation of MSCs from other bone marrow-derived cells is achieved by sole adherence to plastic surface of tissue culture flasks; however, this procedure produces a heterogeneous cell population containing CD45-positive haematopoietic cells (HCs) and haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). It is known, that mixed cell cultures consisting of cocultures of differentiated somatic cells with adult stem cells promote differentiation towards specific cell lineages. For determining the effect of the CD45-positive cell population on the differentiation potential of MSCs, we sorted out the bone marrow-derived adherent cells by immunomagnetic technique (MACS™) to attain a subpopulation of CD45-depleted cells. Herein, we show that the presence of adherent CD45-positive HCs not only promote expression of the chondrogenic marker genes Col2a1, COMP and Sox9, but also of Col1a1, Col10a1 and to a certain degree Cbfa1 in MSCs when cultured in an appropriate three-dimensional environment. These observations constitute a step towards unravelling the influence of haematopoietic cells on chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs.

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