About the research

Mesenchymal stem cells have a tri-lineage differentiation potential into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes. The MSCs serve at the sites of tissue damage where they enhance tissue repair either directly by secreting soluble factors, producing ECM and differentiating or indirectly due to their anti-inflammatory abilities. The MSCs appear to be relatively resistant to harm by external factors such as hypoxia, radiation and chemotherapy as would be expected of cells participating in tissue repair. There is a significant lack of knowledge on metabolomic changes that occur during expansion and osteogenic differentiation of MSC and how these types of data correlate with standard markers that are used to characterize osteogenic differentiation. The main impact of this proposal will be to develop a computational based model to describe metabolic pathways used by the cells during expansion and differentiation. Metabolic pathways and their associated metabolites that correlate with standard biomarkers of osteogenic differentiation will be determined and analyse as potential novel biomarkers for osteogenic differentiation of MSCs. Primarily, the expected impact of the proposed studies will be to Increase scientific knowledge of the metabolomic changes that occur during in vitro osteogenic differentiation of MSC. and propose novel biomarkers that can predict successful osteogenic differentiation.

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