Effects of dexamethasone on cell sheet-based tissue engineering of mesenchymal stem cells for the regeneration of bone and cartilage tissues

• Main Author: Tan, Jing Shi
• Other Authors: Wang Dongan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71948
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Scaffold-free Tissue Engineering, specifically Cell Sheet Engineering, has been gaining traction due to the preserved extracellular matrix and vital supporting proteins within the cell sheet that can improve physiological imitation and overcome the limitations of conventional scaffolds. However, there has been limited progress in the regeneration of 3D tissues by this technique. In this study, we aim to study the impact of culturing human bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cell sheets with dexamethasone on the subsequent induced osteogenesis and chondrogenesis. It was found that dexamethasone-treated cell sheets resulted in lower cell proliferation, enhanced calcium deposition and the upregulation of bone marker ALP and cartilage markers AGG, COL1 and COL2 during induced differentiation. These findings suggest the augmented osteogenic and chondrogenic properties by the dexamethasone-treated MSCs and hence, be able to facilitate the regeneration of 3D tissues. Findings from this study could influence future studies to examine the neural differentiation capacity of dexamethasone-treated MSCs due to the consistent upregulation of ALP involved in the development of the nervous system and the possible synergy from other additives that can increase the gene expression of other bone markers or reduce the production of fibrocartilage marker COL1.