In Vitro Osteogenesis Study of Shell Nacre Cement with Older and Young Donor Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells

Bridget Jeyatha Wilson; Heather Elizabeth Owston; Neelam Iqbal; Peter V Giannoudis; Dennis McGonagle; Hemant Pandit; Lizymol Philipose Pampadykandathil; Elena Jones; Payal Ganguly

doi:10.3390/bioengineering11020143

In Vitro Osteogenesis Study of Shell Nacre Cement with Older and Young Donor Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells

Bioengineering (Basel). 2024 Jan 31;11(2):143. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering11020143.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Division of Dental Products, Department of Biomaterial Science and Technology, Biomedical Technology Wing, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram 695 012, India.
² Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds LS9 7JT, UK.
³ School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
⁴ Leeds Orthopaedic & Trauma Sciences, Leeds General Infirmary, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
⁵ Leeds Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Centre, Chapel Allerton Hospital, Leeds LS7 4SA, UK.

Abstract

Bone void-filling cements are one of the preferred materials for managing irregular bone voids, particularly in the geriatric population who undergo many orthopedic surgeries. However, bone marrow mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (BM-MSCs) of older-age donors often exhibit reduced osteogenic capacity. Hence, it is crucial to evaluate candidate bone substitute materials with BM-MSCs from the geriatric population to determine the true osteogenic potential, thus simulating the clinical situation. With this concept, we investigated the osteogenic potential of shell nacre cement (SNC), a bone void-filling cement based on shell nacre powder and ladder-structured siloxane methacrylate, using older donor BM-MSCs (age > 55 years) and young donor BM-MSCs (age < 30 years). Direct and indirect cytotoxicity studies conducted with human BM-MSCs confirmed the non-cytotoxic nature of SNC. The standard colony-forming unit-fibroblast (CFU-F) assay and population doubling (PD) time assays revealed a significant reduction in the proliferation potential (p < 0.0001, p < 0.05) in older donor BM-MSCs compared to young donor BM-MSCs. Correspondingly, older donor BM-MSCs contained higher proportions of senescent, β-galactosidase (SA-β gal)-positive cells (nearly 2-fold, p < 0.001). In contrast, the proliferation capacity of older donor BM-MSCs, measured as the area density of CellTracker^TM green positive cells, was similar to that of young donor BM-MSCs following a 7-day culture on SNC. Furthermore, after 14 days of osteoinduction on SNC, scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) showed that the amount of calcium and phosphorus deposited by young and older donor BM-MSCs on SNC was comparable. A similar trend was observed in the expression of the osteogenesis-related genes BMP2, RUNX2, ALP, COL1A1, OMD and SPARC. Overall, the results of this study indicated that SNC would be a promising candidate for managing bone voids in all age groups.

Keywords: bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells: age-related changes:proliferation; bone void filling cement; osteogenesis; shell nacre cement.

Abstract

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