Chitosan/collagen scaffold containing bone morphogenetic protein‐7 DNA supports dental pulp stem cell differentiation in vitro and in vivo

• Published in: Journal of biomedical materials research. Part A Vol. 108; no. 12; pp. 2519 - 2526
• Main Authors: Yang, Xuechao, Han, Guangli, Pang, Xin, Fan, Mingwen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.12.2020; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: bone morphogenetic protein; Bone morphogenetic proteins; Calcium; Cell differentiation; Cell proliferation; Chitosan; Collagen; Dental pulp; dental pulp stem cells; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Differentiation (biology); DNA; Drying; Gene transfer; Histology; In vivo methods and tests; Phenotypes; Proteins; Scaffolds; Stem cells; Substrates; Surgical implants; Tissue engineering; collagen; chitosan; tissue engineering; bone morphogenetic protein; dental pulp stem cells
• ISSN: 1549-3296; 1552-4965
• DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.34064

In this study, porous chitosan/collagen scaffolds were prepared through a freeze‐drying process, and loaded with the plasmid vector encoding human bone morphogenetic protein‐7 (BMP‐7) gene. To investigate the feasibility and efficacy of this gene‐activated scaffold on dental tissue engineering, human dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) were seeded in this scaffold for in vitro and in vivo study. In vitro results indicated that cells can be transfected successfully by loaded plasmid and secrete BMP‐7 until day 24. Evaluation of DNA content, ALP activity, calcium content, SEM, and real‐time PCR revealed that cells on gene‐activated scaffold showed better proliferation properties and odontoblastic differentiation behaviors than cells on pure scaffolds. Then, these cell–scaffold complexes were implanted subcutaneously and retrieved after 4 weeks for histology evaluation. In vivo results that gene‐activated scaffold group could still trace the existence of tranfected cells at week 4 and showed the upregulated expression of DSPP compared to pure scaffold groups. On the basis of our results, chitosan/collagen‐loaded BMP‐7 DNA appears to be an effective substrate candidate for gene delivery and indeed enhanced DPSCs differentiation toward an odontoblast‐like phenotype in vitro and in vivo. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A:, 2012.