Abstract Details
| Presented By: | Borden, Brad |
| Affiliated with: | University of Utah, Bioengineering |
| Authors: | Brad Borden, James Yockman, Sung Wan Kim |
| From: | University of Utah |
Title
Abstract
Cell based treatment for disease is growing in scope and effectiveness. With this increase in interest and research, appropriate delivery strategies are important to consider. While the use of cells suspended in saline has been used, it is not perfect; only a limited number of cells may engraft at the implant site, with one study finding only 10% of injected cells were retained 30 minutes after a myocardial injection. The authors conclusion was that the “delivery strategy will need to be modified if more cells are to be retained within the target organ.”
Scaffolding systems seeded with cells is one method for limiting the departure of implanted cells from the target area. This can be accomplished by a thermoreversable hydrogel.
PoligoGel (SamYang Corp) is a novel high-molecular weight thermosensitive hydrogel. It is based on multiple alternating blocks of PEG and PPO or PBO. Here it is used for the embedding of rat bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (rMSCs) with the intent of retaining the cells at the implant site.
Local environment can also have a significant effect on stem cell differentiation. It is imperative that embedded cells do not become lineage committed to undesired fates. To ensure this did not occur cells were removed from the hydrogel and checked for differentiation, as well as ensuring they retained the ability to differentiate. This was accomplished by reverse transcriptase PCR. PCR was performed looking genetic markers for fat and for bone: Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ and Adipocyte P2 were measured for fat; osteoblastic specific factor-2 and Osteocalcin were observed for bone. No differentiation was observed as a result of encapsulation.