Browsing by Author "Tabata, Yasuhiko"

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    A 3D biodegradable protein based matrix for cartilage tissue engineering and stem cell differentiation to cartilage.
    (Journal of materials science. Materials in medicine, 2009)
    A protein based 3D porous scaffold is fabricated by blending gelatin and albumin. The biomimetic biodegradable gelatin, promoted good cell adhesion and its hydrophilic nature enabled absorption of culture media. Albumin is proposed to serve as a nontoxic foaming agent and also helped to attain a hydrophobic-hydrophilic balance. The hydrophobic-hydrophilic balance and appropriate crosslinking of the scaffold avoided extensive swelling, as well as retained the stability of scaffold in culture medium for long period. The scaffold is found to be highly porous with open interconnected pores. The adequate swelling and mechanical property of the scaffold helped to withstand the loads imparted by the cells during in vitro culture. The scaffold served as a nontoxic material to monolayer of fibroblast cells and is found to be cell compatible. The suitability of scaffold for chondrocyte culture and stem cell differentiation to chondrocytes is further explored in this work. The scaffold provided appropriate environment for chondrocyte culture, resulting in deposition of cartilage specific matrix molecules that completely masked the pores of the porous scaffold. The scaffold promoted the proliferation and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells to chondrocytes in presence of growth factors. The transforming growth factor, TGFbeta3 promoted better chondrogenic differentiation than its isoform TGFbeta1 in this scaffold.
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    Growth factor-mediated effects on chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells in 3D semi-IPN poly(vinyl alcohol)-poly(caprolactone) scaffolds
    (JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL MATERIALS RESEARCH PART A, 2010)
    Cells, signaling molecules and three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds are the major contributors to the in vitro regeneration of cartilage. This study evaluates the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells to chondrocytes, in a 3D semi-interpenetrating polymer network (semi-IPN) scaffold that gives an appropriate niche for chondrogenic differentiation. The 3D semi-IPN scaffold poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(caprolactone) mimics the properties of extracellular matrix of native cartilage. The chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells on the 3D scaffolds is carried out by supplementing signaling molecules like TGF beta 1, TGF beta 3, and BMP2 individually and in two different combinations. The results indicate that each growth factor supplement or combinations showed a different influence on cell morphology, overall distribution of cells, and secretion of cartilage specific molecules. We conclude from our results, that a combination of TGF beta 3 and BMP2 promotes better differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells to chondrocytes in our scaffold. This study hence points out that an appropriate combination of 3D scaffolds and signaling molecules are required in the differentiation and maintenance of the chondrogenic phenotype during in vitro regeneration of cartilage tissue. (c) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res 94A: 146-159, 2010