Use of mesenchymal stem cells in a collagen matrix for achilles tendon repair

Abstract

Summary: This investigation tested the hypothesis that delivering mesenchymal stem cell-seeded implants to a lendon gap model results in significantly improved repair biomechanics. Cultured, autologous. marrowderived mesenchymal stem cells were suspended in a collagen gel delivery vehiclc; the cell-gel composite was subsequently contracted onto a pretensioned suture. The resulting tissue prosthesis was then implanted into a 1-cm-long gap defect in the rabbit Achilles lendon. Idcntical procedures were performed on the contralatera1 tendon, but only the suture material was implanted. The tendon-implant constructs were evaluated 4,8. and 12 weeks later by biomechanical and histological criteria. Significantly greater load-related structural and material properties were seen at all time intervals in the mesenchymal stem cell-treated tendons than in the contralateral, treated control repairs (p < 0.05), which contained suture alone with natural cell recruitment. The values were typically twice those for the control tissues at each time interval. Load-related material properties for the treated tissues also increascd significantly over time (p < 0.05). The treated tissues had a significantly larger cross-sectional area (p < 0.05), and their collagen fibers appcarcd to be better aligned than those in the matched controls. The results indicate that delivering mesenchymal stem cell-contracted, orgaiiized collagen implants to large tendon defects can significantly improve the biomcchanics. structure, and probably the lunction of the tendon after injury.

Migration, fate and in vivo imaging of adult stem cells in the CNS

“…These are multipotent adult progenitor cells that are capable of differentiating into bone, 18 cartilage, 19 muscle 20 tendon and ligament, 21 and fat cell 7 phenotypes. The demonstrated ability of MSCs to differentiate into different phenotypes makes MSCs excellent candidates as therapeutic cells for the repair of damaged tissue.…”

Effects of age on the repair ability of mesenchymal stem cells in rabbit tendon

“…The use of MSC transplantation for in vivo tissue repair and regeneration has been investigated in different tissue and animal models [3,4,6,9,12,14,23,29,30,32, 36,41,47,48,58,60]. Our laboratory and others have used bone marrow-derived MSCs for tendon repair in the adolescent or young skeletally mature animal [3,4,47,53,601.…”

Adult bone marrow stromal stem cells express germline, ectodermal, endodermal, and mesodermal genes prior to neurogenesis

“…This plasticity is exhibited by adult MSCs as well. MSCs normally differentiate into bone, cartilage, muscle, tendon, and fat, classical mesenchymal derivatives (Owen, 1988;Beresford, 1989;Young et al, 1998;Pittenger et al, 1999). We recently found that MSCs can be induced to overcome their mesenchymal fate and differentiate into neurons in vitro (Woodbury et al, 2000).…”