Orbital Fibroblasts From Graves' Orbitopathy Patients Share Functional and Immunophenotypic Properties With Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells.

Early human evidence such as case series or small samples is exploring possible benefits.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

In Graves' orbitopathy (GO), inflammation and expansion of the retrobulbar tissue are the result of a pathophysiologic process in which orbital fibroblasts (GO-Fs) are considered the central cell type. However, in a previous study we observed that GO-Fs expressed some of the consensus surface markers described for mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC). In this study, we further elucidate the stem cell characteristics of GO-Fs by comparing them with orbital fat-derived mesenchymal stem cells. We enriched primary human GO-MSCs and GO-Fs simultaneously from the same retrobulbar fat biopsies obtained during decompression surgery of GO patients. The biological characteristics of donor-matched GO-MSCs and -Fs were compared along criteria that define MSC: fibroblast-like growth, MSC surface marker profile, multilineage differentiation potential, and immunomodulatory functions. Application of a standardized isolation and expansion protocol yielded GO-MSCs, which showed plastic adherent fibroblast-like morphology and proliferated and produced hyaluronan similarly to GO-Fs. Both GO-MSCs and GO-Fs expressed orbital fat-derived stem cell surface markers CD29, CD44, CD71, CD73, CD90, CD105, and CD166 and were negative for CD31, CD34, CD45, CD146, and Stro-1 after ex vivo expansion. Further, GO-MSCs and GO-Fs displayed adipogenic, osteogenic, chondrogenic, myogenic, and neuronal differentiati

Evidence level

Early human evidence such as case series or small samples is exploring possible benefits.

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