Epithelial Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells.

Mesenchymal stem cells or mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are non-hematopoietic stromal cells that reside in many human organs and have been isolated from a variety of adult or fetal tissues such as adipose tissue, bone marrow and umbilical cord Wharton's jelly, among others. Because they are a heterogeneous population, International Society for Cellular Therapy has established 3 minimum criteria to characterize MSCs : i) adherence to plastic, ii) differentiation potential (osteogenic, chondrogenic and adipogenic lineages) and iii) expression of specific surface antigens (CD73+, CD90+, CD105+, CD34-, CD45-, CD11b-, CD14-, CD19-, CD79a-, HLA-DR-). Because of these characteristics, MSCs are useful for different applications and studies, most of them related with regenerative biomedicine.