Abstract
Recent developments in stem cell research have promoted a flourishing of new biomaterials and scaffolds for tissue repair. However, there is a scarcity of procedures to monitor the performance of scaffold-stem cell combinations implanted in live animals, avoiding the inherent artefacts associated with in vitro assay conditions. We report the implementation of a procedure based on the use of the luciferase gene as a cell proliferation tracer to monitor, by in vivo non-invasive imaging, the performance of stem cell-biomaterial combinations used for tissue regeneration. In a model system using immunodepressed mice we show preference of a mouse embryonic mesenchymal cell line (C3H/10T1/2) for specific implantation sites and biomaterials during a prolonged in vivo growth period (3 months). Moreover, we analyzed the safety of implanted cells using a sensitive luminometric procedure and showed that the implanted cells did not spread to other organs. Our results demonstrate the utility of this simple and resource-saving procedure in the development and screening of biomaterials for tissue engineering.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2718-2728 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Biomaterials |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2007 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank Dr. Oriol Juan and M a Angeles Velasco for their help with the histologyc interpretations, and Dr. Ignasi Gich (Department of Epidemiology, Hospital Sant Pau) for his assistance with the statistical analysis of the data. This study was funded in part by grants from EU-FR6 Integrated Project GENOSTEM, La Marató TV3 and the Foundation and Red Temática de Investigación Cooperativa TERCEL Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo.
Keywords
- Cell proliferation
- Enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)
- In vivo imaging
- Luciferase
- Scaffold