Mesenchymal Stem Cells Ageing: Targeting the “Purinome” to Promote Osteogenic Differentiation and Bone Repair

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can differentiate into bone forming cells. Such ability is compromised in elderly individuals resulting in bone disorders such as osteoporosis, also limiting their clinical usage for cell transplantation and bone tissue engineering strategies. In bone marrow niches, adenine and uracil nucleotides are important local regulators of osteogenic differentiation of MSCs. Nucleotides can be released to the extracellular milieu under both physiological and pathological conditions via (1) membrane cell damage, (2) vesicle exocytosis, (3) ATP‐binding cassette transporters, and/or (4) facilitated diffusion through maxi‐anion channels, hemichannels or ligand‐gated receptor pores. Nucleotides and their derivatives act via adenosine P1 (A 1 , A 2A , A 2B , and A 3 ) and nucleotide‐sensitive P2 purinoceptors comprising ionotropic P2X and G‐protein‐coupled P2Y receptors. Purinoceptors activation is terminated by membrane‐bound ecto‐nucleotidases and other ecto‐phosphatases, which rapidly hydrolyse extracellular nucleotides to their respective nucleoside 5′‐di‐ and mono‐phosphates, nucleosides and free phosphates, or pyrophosphates. Current knowledge suggests that different players of the “purinome” cascade, namely nucleotide release sites, ecto‐nucleotidases and purinoceptors, orchestrate to fine‐tuning regulate the activity of MSCs in the bone microenvironment. Increasing studies, using osteoprogenitor cell lines, animal models and, more recently, non‐modified MSCs from postmenopausal women, raised the possibility to target chief components of the purinergic signaling pathway to regenerate the ability of aged MSCs to differentiate into functional osteoblasts. This review summarizes the main findings of those studies, prompting for novel therapeutic strategies to control ageing disorders where bone destruction exceeds bone formation, like osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fracture mal‐union. J. Cell. Physiol. 231: 1852–1861, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.