Umbilical Cord Blood-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation

Human UCB was collected from the umbilical vein after neonatal delivery, and human UCB-derived MSCs were prepared according to the proper manufacturing practices at MEDIPOST Co., Ltd.(Seoul Korea). Mother was provided informed consent. UCB collection and MSC isolation of from UCB were approved by the Institutional Review Board of MEDIPOST Co., LTD. In the present study, we used MSCs from single donor to avoid donor related variation. Cell quality control and quality assurance tests were conducted in accordance with KFDA standards. MSCs were cultivated as previously described [10 (link), 11 (link)] and additional details are described in our previous reports [5 (link)–7 (link), 12 (link)]. Before transplantation human UCB-derived MSCs (fifth passage, single donor) were labeled using a PKH26 Red Fluorescent Cell Membrane Labeling Kit (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) according to the manufacturer protocol. On P5, a single dose of human UCB-derived MSCs was administered either intratracheally (5 × 10⁵ cells) or intravenously (2 × 10⁶ cells) via the right jugular vein. Transplantation timing referred to our previous study. Transplantation timing was based upon our previous study [5 (link)].