Umbilical Cord Blood MSC Cells Shown to Inhibit Breast Cancer Growth, What Else?

Umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been shown to inhibit breast cancer cell growth but it is not known whether this effect is specific to only breast cancer cells. Investigators compared the effects of human Wharton’s jelly stem cell (hWJSC) extracts [conditioned medium (hWJSC-CM) and cell lysate (hWJSC-CL)] on breast adenocarcinoma, ovarian carcinoma and osteosarcoma cells. The cells were treated with either hWJSC-CM (50%) or hWJSC-CL (15µg/ml) for 48 hours – 72 hours and changes in cell morphology, proliferation, cycle, gene expression, migration and cell death studied. All three cancer cell lines showed cell shrinkage, blebbing and vacuolations with hWJSC-CL and hWJSC-CM compared to controls.  MTT and BrdU assays showed inhibition of cell growth by 2%-6% and 30%-60% while Transwell migration assay showed inhibition by 20%-26% and 31%-46% for hWJSC-CM and hWJSC-CL respectively for all three cancer cell lines.