The Human Mesenchymal Stem Cell Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) Array is designed for characterization of human mesenchymal stem and progenitor cells (MSCs) and their differentiated chondrogenic, adipogenic, or osteogenic progeny. MSCs are self-renewing, multipotent precursors found in the adherent fraction of bone marrow and stromal compartments in multiple tissues. MSCs can be expanded in vitro to generate mesenchymal stromal cell cultures, which, under appropriate conditions, can differentiate into adipocytes, chondrocytes, and osteoblasts. This qPCR array provides the gene expression profile of MSCs and their trilineage derivatives following in vitro differentiation. Genes were selected based on their demonstrated differential expression in MSCs (Silva et al.) or in MSC-derived chondrogenic (Herlofsen et al.; Yoo et al.), adipogenic (Hung et al.; Menssen et al.), or osteogenic lineage cells (Kulterer et al.).

qPCR is used to determine changes in steady-state mRNA levels of gene expression across multiple samples, generally normalized to the relative expression of internal control genes. Gene-specific primers amplify target sequences within cDNA pools reverse-transcribed from mRNA and, as with TaqMan® technology, hybridized sequence-specific probes provide a fluorescent signal from the 5' exonuclease activity of Taq DNA polymerase. The accumulation rate of the fluorescent signal is used to quantify the sample cDNA, and thereby the amount of mRNA in the original cell lysate.

This qPCR array contains validated primers and probes for detection of 90 genes whose expression is correlated with MSCs or their differentiated derivatives, as well as six endogenous (housekeeping) control genes. TBP (TATA box-binding protein) qPCR Control Template is provided as a synthetic DNA positive control. Additional gene information and a qPCR analysis tool are available at www.stemcell.com/qPCRanalysis