Despite that exploration of potential clinical sources of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is giving rise into great promise in the field of regenerative medicine, proper homing is still a prerequisite to exhibit any type of activity in the target tissue. CXCR4 is among the very well known molecular components involved in cell invasion and migration. The culture-expanded MSCs almost completely lose their engraftment potential without this chemokine receptor. However their homing properties can be enhanced through chemical pre-treatments that would increase CXCR4 expression even after few passages. To the best of our knowledge, there is no comparison between bone marrow and adipose tissue derived MSCs subjected to various hypoxia-mimicking agents. To find the best pretreatment condition for increasing the CXCR4 expression and subsequently enhancing the migration of MSCs towards SDF1, in this study, we explored the effects of different hypoxia-mimicking agent such as valproic acid (VPA), CoCl2, desferrioxamine (DFX) and Licl2 on CXCR4 expression in MSCs and their migration under normoxic condition. To this end, MSCs derived from adipose tissue and bone marrow were subjected to these pretreatments, CXCR4 expression was evaluated by real-time RT-PCR, and in vitro migration of the MSCs was investigated comparatively by TransWell migration assay towards SDF1. Results showed different expression patterns of CXCR4 induction and different migration potentials not only among various hypoxia-mimicking agents but also between two sources of the MSCs. The best result was shown by pretreatment of adipose tissue-derived MSCs by DFX.

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