Use of in vivo gene expression of isolated bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells to study the pathophysiology of osteoporosis in patients with severe thalassemia.

We compared osteoblast differentiation gene expressions in the isolated CD105 mesenchymal stromal cells from bone marrow in 10 patients with severe thalassemia and 12 normal donor controls. The fold expressions of osteoblast differentiation genes of CD105 cells from patients with thalassemia were lower than those of normal donors but increased after being cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium with 10% fetal calf serum. Moreover, the fold expressions of these genes of CD105 cells from normal donors when cultured with 10% pooled serum of patients with thalassemia were lower than when cultured with 10% pooled serum of normal donors. We have also presented the evidence of reversible suppressed expression of these genes in CD105cells from patients with thalassemia when cultured in pooled serum of normal donors. Moreover, healthy donor CD105 cells exhibited lower expression of these genes when cultured in pooled serum of patients with thalassemia compared with pooled serum of normal donors indicating the existence of circulating factors in thalassemic serum impairing the differentiation of mesenchymal stromal cells to osteoblasts.