Good manufacturing practice–grade fibrin gel is useful as a scaffold for human mesenchymal stromal cells and supports in vitro osteogenic differentiation

Abstract

Recently, there has been an increased interest in using mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in bone tissue engineering coupled with a suitable scaffold of both biological and synthetic origin. The cells and these constructs can be combined in vitro or directly in vivo to enhance tissue repair. MSCs are spindle-shaped cells capable of self-renewal and can be induced to differentiate mainly into osteo-, chondro-, and adipogenic-progeny types. Several biomaterials are currently available and, among them, fibrin-based constructs seem to be suitable for guiding the cells during tissue repair or regeneration due to their biocompatibility and biodegradability. Here, this study describes a simple in vitro system using human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs) and fibrin scaffold prepared at different concentrations in fibrinogen (1.5%-3% and 6%) to evaluate cell proliferation and viability inside these constructs. The data demonstrate that the constructs with 3 percent in fibrinogen resulted in the best scaffolds, because within them the cells were able to proliferate and were uniformly distributed. Finally, analyzing the capability of the clots to support osteogenic differentiation of MSCs, we observed that they differentiated into osteoblasts. These results suggest that fibrin gel could be useful as a delivery system for hMSCs.