Abstract
BackgroundCurrent clinical procedures for rotator cuff tears need to be improved, as a high rate of failure is still observed. Therefore, new approaches have been attempted to stimulate self-regeneration, including biophysical stimulation modalities, such as low-frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields, which are alternative and non-invasive methods that seem to produce satisfying therapeutic effects. While little is known about their mechanism of action, it has been speculated that they may act on resident stem cells. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a pulsed electromagnetic field (PST®) on human tendon stem cells (hTSCs) in order to elucidate the possible mechanism of the observed therapeutic effects.MethodshTSCs from the rotator cuff were isolated from tendon biopsies and cultured in vitro. Then, cells were exposed to a 1-h PST® treatment and compared to control untreated cells in terms of cell morphology, proliferation, viability, migration, and stem cell marker expression.ResultsExposure of hTSCs to PST® did not cause any significant changes in proliferation, viability, migration, and morphology. Instead, while stem cell marker expression significantly decreased in control cells during cell culturing, PST®-treated cells did not have a significant reduction of the same markers.ConclusionsWhile PST® did not have significant effects on hTSCs proliferation, the treatment had beneficial effects on stem cell marker expression, as treated cells maintained a higher expression of these markers during culturing. These results support the notion that PST® treatment may increase the patient stem cell regenerative potential.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12906-016-1261-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Current clinical procedures for rotator cuff tears need to be improved, as a high rate of failure is still observed
To mimic the standard PST® for h (PST)®-treatment procedure on patients’ rotator cuff (Fig. 2a), human tendon stem cells (hTSCs) cells were cultured in 150 mm2 dishes, placed for 1 h inside the
Control hTSCs were kept outside the incubator for 1 h during the PST®-treatment time
Summary
Current clinical procedures for rotator cuff tears need to be improved, as a high rate of failure is still observed. New approaches have been attempted to stimulate self-regeneration, including biophysical stimulation modalities, such as low-frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields, which are alternative and non-invasive methods that seem to produce satisfying therapeutic effects. Other approaches have been attempted to stimulate self-regeneration, including biophysical stimulation modalities, such as low-frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs), which are alternative and non-invasive methods that seem to produce satisfying therapeutic effects on a wide range of orthopedics diseases, including osteoarthritis [20, 21], non-united fractures [22, 23], failed arthrodesis [24], and soft tissue injuries [25]. Various frequency-amplitude combinations are automatically switched over and transmitted under continuous control during the treatment period, which is generally set to 1 h
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