Copyright
©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Dec 18, 2025; 16(12): 113320
Published online Dec 18, 2025. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i12.113320
Published online Dec 18, 2025. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i12.113320
Altered lineage commitment of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in idiopathic osteonecrosis of the femoral head
Adrián Cardín-Pereda, Daniel García-Sánchez, Itziar Álvarez-Iglesias, Jennifer Cabello-Sanz, Flor M Pérez-Campo, Department of Molecular Biology, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Marqués de Valdecilla, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cantabria, Santander 39011, Cantabria, Spain
Author contributions: Cardín-Pereda A was responsible for investigation; Cardín-Pereda A and García-Sánchez D were responsible for methodology; Cardín-Pereda A and Pérez-Campo FM were responsible for conceptualization; Cardín-Pereda A, García-Sánchez D, Álvarez-Iglesias I, and Cabello-Sanz J were responsible for formal analysis; Pérez-Campo FM was responsible for resources; Cardín-Pereda A and Álvarez-Iglesias I were responsible for writing of the original draft; Cardín-Pereda A, García-Sánchez D, Álvarez-Iglesias I, Cabello-Sanz J, and Pérez-Campo FM were responsible for writing review and editing; Pérez-Campo FM was responsible for supervision; and all authors thoroughly reviewed and endorsed the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Cantabria Clinical Research, approval No. 2018.014.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Anonymized datasets generated and analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Individual-level patient data cannot be shared due to privacy regulations.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Flor M Pérez-Campo, PhD, Assistant Professor, Senior Researcher, Department of Molecular Biology, Insituto de Investigación Sanitaria Marqués de Valdecilla, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cantabria, Avda Cardenal Herrera Oria S/N, Santander 39011, Cantabria, Spain. f.perezcampo@unican.es
Received: August 22, 2025
Revised: September 18, 2025
Accepted: November 6, 2025
Published online: December 18, 2025
Processing time: 117 Days and 18.9 Hours
Revised: September 18, 2025
Accepted: November 6, 2025
Published online: December 18, 2025
Processing time: 117 Days and 18.9 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Directly harvested bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells from femoral heads of patients with idiopathic osteonecrosis show higher proliferation but reduced osteogenesis, increased adipogenesis and upregulated nuclear factor kappa B target genes relative to osteoarthritis controls. This hyperproliferative yet lineage-skewed phenotype offers a mechanistic link between cellular dysfunction and failed structural repair in osteonecrosis of the femoral head and supports the use of therapies that reprogramme mesenchymal stem cells fate and the bone marrow microenvironment.