Induction of osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation in adipose derived stem cells (ASCs) using magnetic stimuli

Abstract

Bone and cartilage are two crucial tissues of the human body. Their functionality impairment caused by injuries or age-related diseases affects a multitude of people worldwide. Driven by the urgent medical necessities to improve these tissues rehabilitation and regeneration, extensive efforts have been dedicated in strategies to promote bone and cartilage tissue regeneration. As traditional treatments for bone and cartilage healing fail to provide an effective long-term solution, without restoring the tissue functions and/or with severe side effects, tissue engineering (TE) arises as a promising alternative approach. As stem cells are an endogenous mechanism of tissue repair and regeneration, having the capacity to differentiate into cell phenotypes of a particular lineage, they have great interest and play an important role in TE and regenerative medicine approaches. Among them, human Adipose Derived Stem Cells (hASCs) demonstrate promising characteristics for TE as they are relatively easy to harvest, are highly proliferative and can differentiate towards bone and cartilage lineages. Growing interest on the use of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) through the application of a remote magnetic field to influence cell behavior, as these strategies can stimulate intracellular processes at a cellular level, such as proliferation and differentiation. This thesis focuses on the study of iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles in the differentiation process of hASCs towards bone and cartilage lineages. Proliferative and viability assays were assessed for up to 28 days and selective stainings of bone and cartilage tissues were performed to infer on the commitment of hASCs to bone and cartilage phenotypes. The selected MNPs under a MF do not negatively affect cellular viability and proliferation, as expected. Although MNPs and MF has influences hASCs differentiation, MNPs under the MF have a greater impact in osteogenic differentiation, especially in terms of mineralized ECM production. Thereby, the attained results suggests that the application of MNPs under an external MF stimulation show the potential in cell based therapies for bone and cartilage tissues.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Manuela Estima Gomes (Supervisor)