Papers by Keyword: Bone Marrow Stem Cells

Abstract: Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) possess a high replicative capacity and have the capacity to differentiate into various connective tissue cell types. With the advance in cell culture technique, the BMSCs have been induced to differentiate to osteoblastics linage. To improve the situation of non-union in posterior spinal fusion (PSF), tissue engineering approach to combine BMSCs supported by the calcium phosphate ceramics was applied in PSF and its effect was investigated in the present study. Autologous BMSCs from 16-week-old rabbit tibiae were expanded and induced to differentiate into osteoblastic cells with defined medium and osteogenic supplement. Calcium phosphate ceramic (CPC) was used as the scaffold to deliver the cells to the standardized rabbit posterior spinal fusion model. The assessment of bone mineral and fusion mass volume was conducted at week 7 post-operation with quantitative computed tomography and micro-computed tomography. When compared with control, the composite of BMSCs with CPC enhanced the fusion mass volume by 40% (p<0.05) and bone mineral content in the CPC was 7% (p=0.05) higher. Our study showed that additional BMSCs at the fusion site of PSF did provide extra resource for new bone formation and enhanced the fusion rate.

Abstract: Recent study shows that endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) and gene therapy technologies are effective strategies in the inhibition of stenosis and thrombus formation and improving the patency rate of the vascular graft in vivo. In this study, rat EPCs were cultured from bone marrow, and plated in fibronectin-coated plates with EBM-2 medium. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were cultured with alpha minimum essential medium ( -MEM). After two weeks, EPCs were immunohistochemically characterized using antibodies specific for endothelial cells. Retroviral vectors pMSCV-eNOS, pMSCV-tPA, pMSCV-LacZ and pMCSV-GFP were constructed. Retroviral particles were produced using packaging cell line 293T cells. Gene transfer was carried out by exposing cells to virus solution for 6 hours in the presence of 8µg/ml polybrene. For constructing vessels, MSCs and EPCs were seeded on fibronectin coated ePTFE graft in tissue culture condition for 2-4 weeks. The attachment and growth of cells were analyzed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Our data showed that the EPCs expressed VEGF, Lectin BS-1, RECA-1, indicating they are endothelial lineage. The concentrated retroviral particles showed many folds higher transduction efficiency to NIH 3T3 cells than the commercial reagent Fugene. SEM data showed dense attachment of MSCs on the graft surface. MSCs/EPCs co-culture gave much better cell coverage on the graft than culture of EPCs alone.