Comparison of human muscle-derived stem cells and human adipose-derived stem cells in neurogenic trans-differentiation

Purpose: Erectile dysfunction (ED) remains a major complication from cavernous nerve injury during radical prostatectomy. Recently, stem cell treatment for ED has been widely reported. This study was conducted to investigate the availability, differentiation into functional cells, and potential of human muscle-derived stem cells (hMDSCs) and human adipose-derived stem cells (hADSCs) for ED treatment. Materials and Methods: We compared the neural differentiation of hMDSCs and hADSCs. Human muscle and adipose tissues were digested with collagenase, followed by filtering and centrifugation. For neural induction, isolated hMDSCs and hADSCs were incubated in neurobasal media containing forskolin, laminin, basic-fibroblast growth factor, and epidermal growth factor for 5 days. Following neural induction, hMDSCs and hADSCs were differentiated into neural cells, including neurons and glia, in vitro. Results: In neural differentiated hMDSCs (d-hMDSCs) and differentiated hADSCs (d-hADSCs), neural stem cell marker (nestin) showed a significant decrease by immunocytochemistry, and neuronal marker (β-tubulin III) and glial marker (GFAP) showed a significant increase, compared with primary hMDSCs and hADSCs. Real-time chain reaction analysis and Western blotting demonstrated significantly elevated levels of mRNA and protein of β-tubulin III and GFAP in d-hADSCs compared with d-hMDSCs. Conclusions: We demonstrated that hMDSCs and hADSCs can be induced to undergo phenotypic and molecular changes consistent with neurons. The neural differentiation capacity of hADSCs was better than that of hMDSCs.