Derivation of Equine Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells via the Neural Crest Pathway and Characterisation by Immunophenotype and Tri-Lineage Differentiation.

Overview

Authors: Elvira Bernad¹, Belén Serrano¹, Arantza Vitoria^1,2, Sara Fuente^1,2, Antonio Romero^1,2, Francisco José Vázquez^1,2, Pilar Zaragoza¹, Clementina Rodellar¹, Alina Cequier^1,2, Laura Barrachina^1,2

ORCID iDs: Elvira Bernad, Belén Serrano, Arantza Vitoria, Sara Fuente, Francisco José Vázquez, Pilar Zaragoza, Clementina Rodellar, Alina Cequier, Laura Barrachina

Laboratorio de Genética Bioquímica-LAGENBIO (Universidad de Zaragoza), Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón-IA2 (Universidad de Zaragoza-CITA), Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Aragón-IISA, 50013 Zaragoza, Spain; (E.B.); (B.S.); (A.V.); (S.F.); (A.R.); (F.J.V.); (P.Z.); (C.R.); (L.B.)
Servicio de Cirugía y Medicina Equina, Hospital Veterinario, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50013 Zaragoza, Spain

Institutions: Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain); Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (Spain); Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón (Spain)

Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI, volume 16, issue 11, article 1618

Dates: received 14 April 2026; accepted 21 May 2026; published online 26 May 2026

Type: Research article · Language: English

License: CC BY

Identifiers: DOI 10.3390/ani16111618 · PMID 42278052 · PMCID PMC13255804 · OpenAlex W7162436929

Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)

Status: data only (how the code is found and verified)

Categories: human (organism), other (organism)

Methods: Statistics

Keywords: horse, iPSC, MSC, neural crest, differentiation, pluripotency, gene expression

Topic: Mesenchymal stem cell research (Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology), according to OpenAlex

Funding: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PID2020-116352GB-I00, RYC2024-050527-I); Gobierno de Aragón; NextGenerationEU; Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Aragón (IIS Aragón); Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón (IA2); MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; ESF; Ramón y Cajal Programme

Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 75 references in the paper

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) hold promise for treating different equine conditions but enter senescence during culture. Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to derive MSC-like cells (iMSCs) can increase cell availability and diminish the need for invasive and repeated tissue harvesting. While human iMSCs are intensively studied, research on equine iMSCs (eqiMSCs) is very limited and has focused on strategies for spontaneous differentiation to obtain these cells. The aim of this study was to obtain MSC-like cells from equine iPSCs (eqiPSCs) by directing their differentiation via the neural crest pathway. The resulting eqiMSCs downregulated pluripotent gene expression compared to originating eqiPSCs, and the majority of lines met most of the standard criteria for tissue-derived MSCs (immunophenotype and tri-lineage differentiation potential). Nevertheless, eqiMSCs showed some differences from primary equine MSCs, possibly due to their different developmental origin, and displayed certain inter-line variability, which might be related to the different kinetics of independent eqiPSC lines. This study demonstrates for the first time that equine MSC-like cells (eqiMSCs) can be derived from eqiPSCs by directing their differentiation through the neural crest pathway. This constitutes an important advancement towards more sustainable sources of therapeutic cells in veterinary medicine and warrants further exploration of the functional characteristics of these novel cells.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper links to its data and to no code of its authors: see the Data section.

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Data

Datasets cited

zenodo:20035832, at Zenodo; found in “Data Availability Statement”
zenodo:20040545, at Zenodo; found in “Data Availability Statement”

Data Availability Statement

The raw experimental data that support the findings of this study are available in Zenodo with the identifiers https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20035832 and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20040545.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

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Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 10 authors, 7 keywords, 8 funders, 74 references.

Cite

This paper

Bernad, E., Serrano, B., Vitoria, A., Fuente, S., Romero, A., Vázquez, F. J., Zaragoza, P., Rodellar, C., Cequier, A., & Barrachina, L. (2026). Derivation of Equine Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells via the Neural Crest Pathway and Characterisation by Immunophenotype and Tri-Lineage Differentiation. Animals : an open access journal from MDPI, 16(11), 1618. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani16111618

BibTeX

@article{bernad2026derivation, author = {Bernad, Elvira and Serrano, Belén and Vitoria, Arantza and Fuente, Sara and Romero, Antonio and Vázquez, Francisco José and Zaragoza, Pilar and Rodellar, Clementina and Cequier, Alina and Barrachina, Laura}, title = {{Derivation of Equine Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells via the Neural Crest Pathway and Characterisation by Immunophenotype and Tri-Lineage Differentiation}}, journal = {Animals : an open access journal from MDPI}, year = {2026}, month = may, volume = {16}, number = {11}, pages = {1618}, publisher = {Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)}, issn = {2076-2615}, doi = {10.3390/ani16111618}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/ani16111618}, pmid = {42278052}, pmcid = {PMC13255804} }

RIS

TY - JOUR AU - Bernad, Elvira AU - Serrano, Belén AU - Vitoria, Arantza AU - Fuente, Sara AU - Romero, Antonio AU - Vázquez, Francisco José AU - Zaragoza, Pilar AU - Rodellar, Clementina AU - Cequier, Alina AU - Barrachina, Laura TI - Derivation of Equine Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells via the Neural Crest Pathway and Characterisation by Immunophenotype and Tri-Lineage Differentiation T2 - Animals : an open access journal from MDPI J2 - Animals (Basel) PY - 2026 DA - 2026/05/26 VL - 16 IS - 11 SP - 1618 SN - 2076-2615 PB - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) DO - 10.3390/ani16111618 UR - https://doi.org/10.3390/ani16111618 LA - en ER -

CSL-JSON

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