PS 14. Urine derived stem cells: Implication for Androurology

A convenient stem cell source is a critical for cell therapy and tissue engineering in andro-urology. Currently, most commonlyused stem cells are obtained from bone marrow, adipose, skeletal muscle tissue via tissue biopsy procedures. However, the tissue biopsy itself may lead to donor-site morbidity due to invasive process. A stem cell source with high self-renewal and multipotent differentiation capacities that can be obtained via a simple and non-invasive approach would be highly desirable. We recently found that a subpopulation of cells isolated from urine possess characteristics similar to mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), i.e. clonogenicity, cell growth patterns, expansion capacity, cell surface marker expression profiles, and differentiation capacity. These urine-derived cells are positive for the MSC surface markers such as CD29, CD44, CD54, CD73, CD90, CD105, CD 146, CD166. In addition, these cells also express some embryonic stem cell (ESC) markers, including Oct4, c-Myc and klf4; however, they do not express markers associated with hematopoietic stem cells, such as CD31, CD34, CD45, CD11b, CD14, CD19 and HLD-DR. Those cells can generate a large number of cells from a single clone. Importantly, the cells expressed telomerase activity and retained long telomere length. The cells expressing telomerase activity possessed higher proliferative capacities and could be maintained for up to 67 population doublings (PD), indicating that a single USCs can generate 267 cells. We have demonstrated that these stem cells derived from urine are capable of tri-potent differentiation to smooth muscle, endothelia and urothelial cells. Thus, we have termed these cells "urine-derived stem cells," or USCs. About five to ten USC clones/100 mL urine can be consistently obtained from almost every freshly voided urine sample. Thus, the number of cells from one 200 mL urine sample can provide enough cells to cell therapy in androurology. Therefore, USCs might be a viable cell source for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, stress urinary incontinence, vesicoureteral reflux and engineering urethral or bladder tissues.