Microenvironmental Cues in Mesenchymal Stem Cells Fate Decision

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells which can be easily isolated from different adult tissues and expanded in vitro. MSCs can be induced to differentiate into mesoderm lineages such as bone, cartilage, muscles and nonmesoderm lineage tissues such as cardiomyocytes and neurons. The maintenance of MSC self-renewal ability and multi-lineage differentiation potential are tightly associated with their residing microenvironment. Therefore, in this review, we summarized recent discoveries on how these microenvironmental cues, both from chemical and physical factors regulated MSC stemness. Understanding of how MSCs orchestrating these microenvironmental cues may provide us a better knowledge on how to manipulate and improve the in vitro expansion and induction of MSCs into certain lineage for the future tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.