Morphological and functional characterization of femoral head drilling-derived mesenchymal stem cells.

Adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were primary identified as bone marrow-derived cells, fibroblast-like morphology, and adherent to plastic surfaces of in vitro culture plate. Their identification criteria evolved in time to a well-established panel of markers (expression of CD73, CD90, and CD105) and functional characteristics (adipogenic, osteogenic, and chondrogenic trilineage differentiation ability), which can be applied to adult mesenchymal stem cells obtained from other tissue sources. We tried to assess the potential stemness of femoral head drilling-derived cells as a new source of mesenchymal stem cells (FH-MSCs).