RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells attract extensive attention because of good biological characteristics and broad prospects, but the cells gradually show the characteristics of the aging with the increase of individual age or incubation time in vitro. Nonhuman primates have similar biological characteristics with human being, and have unique advantage in the animal model and disease treatment research.OBJECTIVE: To analyze the difference in proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells from macaques at different ages and to explore the effect of age on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells and the possible mechanism.METHODS: Bone marrow samples from male macaques aged < 3 years and over 20 years were collected through bone marrow puncture, and divided into young group and elder group, with three macaques in each group. Then, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were isolated and cultured in vitro, and the morphological changes, proliferation and differentiation ability were observed. Age-related beta-galactosidase staining was performed, and protein microarray and ELISA were used to detect cytokine levels.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: With age, the proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells from the elder macaques were reduced significantly, and the number of senescent cells increased significantly; the levels of interleukin-1b, interleukin-4, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor α and vascular endothelial growth factor were elevated obviously, the levels of heparin-binding basic fibroblast growth factor and placental growth factor were reduced. These findings indicate that the body's aging lead to the reduction in the proliferation, differentiation and cytokine secretion of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells.