Poster 109: The Autogenous Bone Marrow Cells Transplant Using Atherocollagen Carrier to Rabbit Cranial Bone Defect

Abstract

Bone transplants are mainly performed for oral bone defects. Autogenous bone transplants are performed for large bone defects, but there are problems such as limited quantities of bone and the occurrence of postoperative infection. Therefore, a tissue engineering method has been receiving attention as an alternative method of bone transplantation, and in our department, it has been confirmed that bone formation occurs when bone-marrow cells are transplanted with AC (atherocollagen) as a carrier. However, further experiments using autogenous cell transplantation are necessary before clinical application can be carried out. So far there have only been few such studies and therefore many questions remain to be clarified. In our experiment, we performed autogenous cell transplants on rabbits using AC as a carrier. Bone-marrow cells were taken from the right thigh bones of Japanese white rabbits (male, approximately 3 kg) and then were cultured for 3 weeks in order to biochemically investigate bone neoplasia in vitro as part of Experiment 1. For Experiment 2, in parietal bone defects in rabbits, group A had a carrier attached to the cells, group B had a carrier only, and group C had bone defects only. Five rabbits from each group were killed after 2, 4, and 12 weeks to perform comparative investigations of both μ-CT and pathology. In Experiment 1, it was found that bone-marrow cells had calcium deposits and bone neoplasia was also detected. In Experiment 2, bone formation was seen in group A and group B in which the carrier was used, and group A tended to demonstrate more such bone formation than group B. Furthermore, bone formation was less frequently detected in group C, in which the carrier was not used. Our experiment revealed that attaching a carrier to the cells thus resulted in more extensive bone formation and a higher efficacy than using a carrier alone, thus indicating that this may be a potentially effective alternative method for bone transplantation in the future. In our experiment, this method of attaching an AC carrier to cells was thus shown to be highly effective. By using AC, which has already been applied in a clinical setting for autogenous cells, our experimental method was thus found to be potentially useful for application in an early clinical setting.