The potential role of integrin alpha 6 in human mesenchymal stem cells.

Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are isolated from various adult and perinatal tissues. Although mesenchymal stem cells from multiple sources exhibit similar morphology and cell surface markers, they differ in their properties. In this study, we determined that the expression of integrin alpha 6 () and antisense RNA () correlates with the proliferation, cell size, and differentiation potential. The expression of ITGA6 was inversely correlated with in MSCs. The expression of was higher, but was lower in MSCs from cord placenta junction, cord tissue, and Wharton's jelly. In contrast, expression was lower, while was higher in MSCs from the placenta. The bioinformatic analysis showed that genomic DNA transcribes from the reverse strand, overlapping exon-2. Additionally, we identify several putative promoters (P1-P10) of . is CG rich and contains CGI. EMBOSS Cpgplot software revealed a CGI length of 180 bp that extends from nucleotide 125 to 304 of the P10 sequence. We suggest that the post-transcriptional regulation of the in mesenchymal stem cells is controlled by the which could be a critical factor responsible for the heterogeneity in function and cell fate of human MSCs. These results may provide further impetus for investigations to unravel the mechanisms of regulation that could help maintain or improve the properties of mesenchymal stem cells.