ABSTRACT
Objective To isolate, culture and identify mouse umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells( mUCMSCs) and to study whether they can be induced to differentiate into adipocytes, chondrocytes and osteoblasts.Methods The mUCMSCs were isolated and expanded by adherent culture from fresh mouse umbilical cord.The morphological characteris-tics of the resulting cells were observed under inverted phase contrast microscope, and their expression of mesenchymal sur-face markers was identified and analyzed by flow cytometry.Then mUCMSCs were induced to differentiate into chondro-cytes, adipocytes and osteoblasts in vitro.Results Fibroblast-like cells could be isolated from the fresh umbilical cord by adherent culture.These adherent cells highly expressed mesenchymal markers including CD29, CD90 and CD105 while low expression of CD34.The cells were successfully induced to differentiate into chondrocytes, adipocytes and osteoblasts. Conclusions The mUCMSCs isolated from fresh mouse umbilical cord by adherent culture have potential of differentiation into chondrocytes, adipocytes and osteoblasts.