Aldehyde dehydrogenase activity helps identify a subpopulation of murine adipose-derived stem cells with enhanced adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation potential.

Aim: To identify and characterize functionally distinct subpopulation of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs).

Methods: ADSCs cultured from mouse subcutaneous adipose tissue were sorted fluorescence-activated cell sorter based on aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity, a widely used stem cell marker. Differentiation potentials were analyzed by utilizing immunocytofluorescece and its quantitative analysis.

Results: Approximately 15% of bulk ADSCs showed high ALDH activity in flow cytometric analysis. Although significant difference was not seen in proliferation capacity, the adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation capacity was higher in ALDH subpopulations than in ALDH. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that ribosome-related gene sets were enriched in the ALDH subpopulation.

Conclusion: High ALDH activity is a useful marker for identifying functionally different subpopulations in murine ADSCs. Additionally, we suggested the importance of ribosome for differentiation of ADSCs by gene set enrichment analysis.