Abstract: Objective To identify the biological characteristics after infecting the rat BMSCs with recombinant virus supernatant containing hTERT gene. Methods BMSCs were infected with hTERT recombinant virus supernatant (MSC-hTERT group) and empty virus supernatant (MSC-GFP group), the uninfected group (MSC group) was also set up. The expression of target gene was detected by realtime PCR. Number of passages, cell morphology and cell cycle in MSC group and MSC-hTERT group were observed and analyzed. Cell markers of cells in MSC-hTERT group were detected and the potential of differentiation was also evaluated. Results The expression of hTERT was higher in MSC-hTERT group than in the other two groups. Number of passages and proliferation index in MSC-hTERT group were higher than in MSC group. The ability of multi-lineage differentiation potential of cells in MSC-hTERT group was maintained. Conclusion MSCs transfected by hTERT have the same biological characteristics as primary BMSCs and the ability of cell proliferation was strengthened. More cells could be reserved for tissue engineering and cell transplantation therapy.

Key words: Human telomerase reverse transcriptase, Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, Biological characteristics, Potential of differentiation