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Co-culture of Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells and Endothelial Cells Using Porous Biopolymer Microcarriers: A Feasibility Study for Bone Tissue Engineering

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Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Aims and scope

Abstract

Delivery of stem cells with osteogenesis while enabling angiogenesis is important for vascularized bone tissue engineering. Here a three-dimensional (3D) co-culture system of dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) and endothelial cells (ECs) was designed using porous microcarriers, and the feasibility of applying to bone tissue engineering was investigated in vitro. Highly porous spherical microcarriers made of degradable biopolymers were prepared with sizes of hundreds of micrometers. The microcarriers loaded with DPSCs were co-cultured with ECs embedded in a hydrogel of type I collagen. An optimal co-culture medium that preserves the viability of ECs while stimulating the osteogenic differentiation of DPSCs was found to be a 10:1 of osteogenic medium:endothelial medium. The co-cultured constructs of DPSCs/ECs showed significantly higher level of alkaline phosphatase activity than the mono-cultured cells. Moreover, the expressions of genes related with osteogenesis and angiogenesis were significantly up-regulated by the co-cultures with respect to the mono-cultures. Results imply the interplay between ECs and DPSCs through the designed 3D co-culture models. The microcarrier-enabled co-cultured cell system is considered to be useful as an alternative tool for future vascularized bone tissue engineering.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the grant from National Research Foundation (2009-0093829), Republic of Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Tissue Regeneration Engineering (ITREN), School of Dentistry, Dankook University, Cheonan, 31116, Republic of Korea

    Guang-Zhen Jin & Hae-Won Kim

  2. Department of Nanobiomedical Science & BK21 Plus NBM Global Research Center for Regenerative Medicine, School of Dentistry, Dankook University, Cheonan, 31116, Republic of Korea

    Guang-Zhen Jin & Hae-Won Kim

  3. Department of Biomaterials Science, School of Dentistry, Dankook University, Cheonan, 31116, Republic of Korea

    Hae-Won Kim

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  1. Guang-Zhen Jin
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Correspondence to Hae-Won Kim.

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The authors have no financial conflicts of interest.

Ethical statement

This study conducted experiments of human DPSCs with the approval of Institutional Review Board (IRB), Dankook University (DKU-IRB-2014-039).

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Jin, GZ., Kim, HW. Co-culture of Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells and Endothelial Cells Using Porous Biopolymer Microcarriers: A Feasibility Study for Bone Tissue Engineering. Tissue Eng Regen Med 14, 393–401 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13770-017-0061-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13770-017-0061-2

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