Comparison of single hWJSCs and hBMMSCs

The Wharton’s jelly of the human umbilical cord contains a population of mesenchymal stem cells that are unique and possess significant clinical utility. Known as human Wharton’s jelly stem cells (hWJSCs), they have broad differentiation potential, are proliferative and available in large numbers from discarded cords thus requiring minimum ex vivo expansion. They are safe and non-tumorigenic and maintain stemness properties for prolonged periods in culture. Besides their potential to produce tissues for cell based therapies, it has been demonstrated that they have anti-cancer and wound healing properties and provide cues for expansion of hematopoietic stem cells for treatment of hematopoietic malignancies. They are thus an attractive alternative source of MSCs of therapeutic value compared to bone marrow MSCs (hBMMSCs). We aimed to characterise the differences in gene expression profiles between these two stem cell types using single cell RNA sequencing to determine which pathways are involved in conferring hWJSCs with their unique properties.