Neuronal differentiation of bone marrow-derived stromal stem cells involves suppression of discordant phenotypes through gene silencing

Tissue engineering involves the construction of transplantable tissues in which bone marrow aspirates may serve as an accessible source of autogenous multipotential mesenchymal stem cells. Increasing reports indicate that the lineage restriction of adult mesenchymal stem cells may be less established than previously believed, and stem cell-based therapeutics await the establishment of an efficient protocol capable of achieving a prescribed phenotype differentiation. We have investigated how adult mouse bone marrow-derived stromal cells (BMSCs) are guided to neurogenic and osteogenic phenotypes. Naive BMSCs were found surprisingly active in expression of a wide range of mRNAs and proteins, including those normally reported in terminally differentiated neuronal cells and osteoblasts. The naive BMSCs were found to exhibit voltage-dependent membrane currents similar to the neuronally guided BMSCs, although with smaller amplitudes. Once BMSCs were exposed to the osteogenic culture condition, the neuronal characteristics quickly disappeared. Our data suggest that the loss of discordant phenotypes during BMSC differentiation cannot be explained by the selection and elimination of unfit cells from the whole BMSC population. The percent ratio of live to dead BMSCs examined did not change during the first 8-10 days in either neurogenic or osteogenic differentiation media, and cell detachment was estimated at < 1%. However, during this period, bone-associated extracellular matrix genes were selectively down-regulated in neuronally guided BMSCs. These data indicate that the suppression of discordant phenotypes of differentiating adult stem cells is achieved, at least in part, by silencing of superfluous gene clusters.