Abstract

Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have attracted attention as a major cellular source for regenerative medicine and preclinical studies. Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems can be used to construct physiologically relevant MSC spheroids with enhanced tissue regeneration capacity. However, what aspect of the MSC spheroids retains the regeneration capacity is not yet fully understood. Here, we induced osteoblast differentiation of MSC spheroids and investigated their respiratory activity using electrochemiluminescence (ECL) imaging developed in our previous study. In parallel, the ability of MSC spheroids to induce angiogenesis was investigated in a microfluidic device with a co-culture of endothelial cells. We found that the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs induced changes in their metabolic activity (respiratory activity of the spheroids decreased during differentiation) and lead to the loss of their angiogenesis-inducing ability. In other words, it is suggested that maintaining the stem cell nature with in the MSC spheroids is an important factor for tissue regeneration. In this study, we demonstrated the effective use of ECL imaging and microfluidic systems for the evaluation of MSC spheroids, providing new insights into stem cell tissue engineering.

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