A coaxially extruded heterogeneous core- shell fiber with Schwann cells and neural stem cells

Xinda Li; Dezhi Zhou; Zhizhong Jin; Hongqing Chen; Xuanzhi Wang; Xinzhi Zhang; Tao Xu

doi:10.1093/rb/rbz037

A coaxially extruded heterogeneous core- shell fiber with Schwann cells and neural stem cells

Regen Biomater. 2020 Mar;7(2):131-139. doi: 10.1093/rb/rbz037. Epub 2019 Nov 7.

Authors

Xinda Li^{1

2}, Dezhi Zhou^{1

2}, Zhizhong Jin³, Hongqing Chen⁴, Xuanzhi Wang⁵, Xinzhi Zhang^{6

7}, Tao Xu^{1

2

8}

Affiliations

¹ Biomanufacturing and Rapid Forming Technology Key Laboratory of Beijing, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
² Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing Technology, Ministry of Education, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Neurosurgery, the First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110122, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Department of Neurosurgery, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an 710032, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Department of Neurosurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Wannan Medical College, Wuhu 241001, People's Republic of China.
⁶ East China Institute of Digital Medical Engineering, Shangrao 334000, People's Republic of China.
⁷ Medprin Regenerative Medical Technologies Co., Ltd, Shenzhen 518102, People's Republic of China.
⁸ Department of Precision Medicine and Healthcare, Tsinghua Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Shenzhen 518055, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Cellular therapies play a critical role in the treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI). Compared with cell-seeded conduits, fully cellular grafts have more similarities with autografts, and thus might result in better regeneration effects. In this study, we fabricated Schwann cell (SC)-neural stem cell (NSC) core-shell alginate hydrogel fibers in a coaxial extrusion manner. The rat SC line RSC96 and mouse NSC line NE-4C were used in this experiment. Fully cellular components were achieved in the core portion and the relative spatial positions of these two cells partially mimic the construction of nerve fibers in vivo. SCs were demonstrated to express more genes of neurotrophic factors in alginate shell. Enhanced proliferation and differentiation tendency of NSCs was observed when they were co-cultured with SCs. This model has strong potential for application in SCI repair.

Keywords: Schwann cell; coaxial extrusion; neural stem cell.