Functional heterogeneity of IFN-γ–licensed mesenchymal stromal cell immunosuppressive capacity on biomaterials
Brian J. Kwee, Johnny Lam, Adovi Akue, Mark KuKuruga, Kunyu Zhang, Luo Gu, Kyung E. Sung
Abstract
Significance Although mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) therapies, with and without biomaterials, have shown success in preclinical models of inflammatory diseases, they have not shown consistent efficacy in clinical trials for these diseases. This is potentially due to variations in the therapeutic properties of MSCs from different donor patients and amongst different MSC subpopulations. Here, we show that the immunosuppressive function of MSCs stimulated with interferon-gamma depends on specific integrin engagement with the biomaterials they are cultured on. Furthermore, the amount of integrin expression on the cells can predict the magnitude of immunosuppressive function of the MSCs on the biomaterials. This may lead to methods to enrich for MSC subpopulations within each donor that have high immunosuppressive function on biomaterials.