Predifferentiated Gingival Stem Cell-Induced Bone Regeneration in Rat Alveolar Bone Defect Model.

Cleft alveolus, a common birth defect of the maxillary bone, affects one in 700 live births every year. This defect is traditionally restored by autogenous bone grafts or allografts, which may possibly cause complications. Cell-based therapies using the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from human gingiva (gingiva-derived mesenchymal stem cells [GMSCs]) is attracting the research interest due to their highly proliferative and multilineage differentiation capacity. Undifferentiated GMSCs expressed high level of MSC-distinctive surface antigens, including CD73, CD105, CD90, and CD166. Importantly, GMSCs induced with osteogenic medium for a week increased the surface markers of osteogenic phenotypes, such as CD10, CD92, and CD140b, indicating their osteogenic potential. The objective of this study was to assess the bone regenerative efficacy of predifferentiated GMSCs (dGMSCs) toward an osteogenic lineage in combination with a self-assembling hydrogel scaffold PuraMatrix™ (PM) and/or bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2), on a rodent model of maxillary alveolar bone defect. A critical size maxillary alveolar defect of 7 mm × 1 mm × 1 mm was surgically created in athymic nude rats. The defect was filled with either PM/BMP2 or PM/...Continue Reading