Evaluating potential of H'mong chicken bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells at different ages for primordial germ cells' feeder layer.

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) have potential applications in genetic conservation, vaccination, tissue repair therapies, and genetic research. Chicken bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (cbMSCs) is a good candidate for co-culture with PGCs. However, there is no consensus on the optimal age of donors. In this study, we aimed to compare specific parameters of H'Mong cbMSCs obtained from day 14 and 19 embryos, and day 3 newborns. Isolated cbMSCs showed characteristics of MSCs. Cells had fibroblast-like morphology, plastic-adherent, expressed specific markers of MSCs and multilineage differentiation potential. The growth rate of cells from day 19 embryos was higher than from other ages. Moreover, cells expressed markers of pluripotency such as , , , , , and , known for their role in maintaining stem cell self-renewal and pluripotency. As feeder cells, cbMSCs from three different ages promoted proliferation of H'Mong PGCs during co-culture. These results suggested that cbMSCs from different ages can be used for co-culture H'Mong PGCs which were further used for genetic preservation of H'Mong chicken or gene editing research.