Effect of Hypoxia on mir-21 and mir-130a Expression in Murine Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Primary and Immortality Phases

The unique properties of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have made them powerful tools in cell therapy and genetic engineering and Murine Mesenchymal stem cells are a suitable model for study in this field. Compared with human mesenchymal stem cells, murine mesenchymal stem cells have different features such as heterogeneity and slow growth rate. Several reports have shown that microRNAs are involved in many cell regulatory processes such as hypoxia. In this study, the effect of hypoxia was investigated on the expression of hypoxia related microRNA in murine mesenchymal stem cells isolated from adipose tissue (AD-MSC).
AD-MSCs were cultured in two hypoxic and normoxic conditions. The expressions of mir-21 and mir-130a in the primary and immortality phase of AD-MSC were evaluated by using Real-time PCR technique. Also, the expression of MSCs surface markers were investigated by flow cytometry in the two mentioned phases.
Findings: Our study showed the expression of mir-21 and mir-130a was increased in hypoxic conditions compared to normoxia. Also expressions of surface markers were different in primary and immortality phase.
Considering that stem cells are sensitive to environmental oxygen levels, over-expression of mir-21 and mir-130a could promote the survival of MSCs exposed to hypoxia.