Interfacing Sca-1pos Mesenchymal Stem Cells with Biocompatible Scaffolds with Different Chemical Composition and Geometry

Abstract EN

An immortalized murine mesenchymal stem cell line (mTERT-MSC) enriched for Linneg/Sca-1pos fraction has been obtained through the transfection of MSC with murine TERT and single-cell isolation.

Such cell line maintained the typical MSC self-renewal capacity and continuously expressed MSC phenotype.

Moreover, mTERT-MSC retained the functional features of freshly isolated MSC in culture without evidence of senescence or spontaneous differentiation events.

Thus, mTERT-MSC have been cultured onto PLA films, 30 and 100 μm PLA microbeads, and onto unpressed and pressed HYAFF-11 scaffolds.

While the cells adhered preserving their morphology on PLA films, clusters of mTERT-MSC were detected on PLA beads and unpressed fibrous scaffolds.

Finally, mTERT-MSC were not able to colonize the inner layers of pressed HYAFF-11.

Nevertheless, such cell line displayed the ability to preserve Sca-1 expression and to retain multilineage potential when appropriately stimulated on all the scaffolds tested.