New insights on the human bone-marrow and gingival mesenchymal stem cell responses to senescence induction

Bone-marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) has been widely used in regenerative medicine, even if they rapidly undergo to senescence phenomena limiting their use in vitro. A promising alternative to BMSCs are the gingival MSCs (GMSCs) for which the susceptibility to senescence induction is still unclear. Herein, we investigated the functional responses of BMSCs and GMCs to two different senescence cellular models that were set up utilizing sub-lethal concentrations of hydroxyurea (HU) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Despite these two models effectively induced BMSC and GMSC cells to undergo cellular senescence, the age-related phenotypic changes (SA-β-gal staining) were significantly lower in GMSCs. By evaluating the expression of different senescence-related genes, including p53, p21 and p16INK4α, we demonstrated GMSCs maintain a higher proliferation rate and result more resistant to HU and H2O2 treatment. BMSC were more prone to apoptotic phenomena and showed higher levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species. In conclusion, GMSCs are more prone to contrast the senescence induction confirming these staminal cell populations as an attractive tool in regenerative medicine