Recellularization of decellularized cancellous bone scaffolds using low-temperature cell seeding

Abstract

Artificial in vitro blood production has been presented by recent literature as a necessary and achievable aim. In order to obtain the required hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) proliferation and differentiation for mature blood cell production, studies have been conducted on using either cytokine-rich conditions or co-culturing with other cells. Alternatively, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture environments (such as tissue scaffolds) have been shown to affect cell morphology, proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, we investigated decellularized cancellous bones (DCBs), which provide 3D structure and natural extracellular matrix, as a scaffold for preserving and growing HSC niches in vitro. Additionally, we optimized a cell seeding method using mesenchymal stem cells as supporting cells. We discovered that, although adhering only to the top of DCBs when seeded at 37 °C, mesenchymal stem cells adhered to the inside of the scaffold at 4 °C, indicating that the seeding temperature is important to control the adherence ability of stem cells. This, in turn, was revealed to be important for HSC cell seeding on 3D extracellular matrix, and provides the required cell methodology to use DCBs as a great scaffold for blood cell production.