Background: The development of tissue-engineered scaffolds with electrical properties is the primary motivation of novel regenerative medicine. Electroconductive scaffolds are designed to mimic the injured tissue environment's electrical properties and regulate cellular behavior - growth, proliferation, and differentiation - that could stimulate the injured nerve's regeneration.
Methods: We fabricated dedicated electroconductive scaffolds and customized an appropriate device with an external current supply to expose cells on the scaffold to electrical stimulation (ES). Next, we isolated rat adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) and performed in vitro experiments that combine cells, an electroconductive scaffold, NGF (nerve growth factor), and ES (90 mV/mm, constant, for four days). Finally, we checked cellular activity as proliferation, viability, morphology, the neurogenic differentiation potential of ASCs, cell alignment, and karyotype.
Results: We observed that the electrical stimulation did not change the viability and chromosome stability of rat ASCs, but altered slightly proliferation compared to non-stimulated cells. The combined effect of a scaffold, NGF, and ES caused morphology changes and enhancement of ASCs neuronal differentiation as indicated in βIII-tubulin expression, actin organization, and upregulation of neurogenic gene expression.
Conclusions: We developed an electroconductive scaffold and customized device for in vitro study with many experimental variants. Based on our results, we presumed that the established study scheme - including an electroconductive scaffold, NGF and ES - is biocompatible and could guide ASCs to differentiate in neurogenic lineage, thus may be potentially applied in nerve injury regeneration.
Keywords: Electrical stimulation; Mesenchymal stem cell; NGF; Neural cell differentiation; Scaffold.
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