Rebuilding Tendons: A Concise Review on the Potential of Dermal Fibroblasts

Tendons are vital to joint movement by connecting muscles to bones. Along with an increasing incidence of tendon injuries, tendon disorders can burden the quality of life of patients or the career of athletes. Current treatments involve surgical reconstruction and conservative therapy. Especially in the elderly population, tendon recovery requires lengthy periods and it may result in unsatisfactory outcome. Cell-mediated tendon engineering is a rapidly progressing experimental and pre-clinical field, which holds great potential for an alternative approach to established medical treatments. The selection of an appropriate cell source is critical and remains under investigation. Dermal fibroblasts exhibit multiple similarities to tendon cells, suggesting they may be a promising cell source for tendon engineering. Hence, the purpose of this review article was in brief, to compare tendon to dermis tissues, and summarize in vitro studies on tenogenic differentiation of dermal fibroblasts. Furthermore, analysis of an open source Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data repository was carried out, revealing great overlap in the molecular profiles of both cell types. Lastly, a summary of in vivo studies employing dermal fibroblasts in tendon repair as well as pilot clinical studies in this area is included. Altogether, dermal fibroblasts hold therapeutic potential and are attractive cells for rebuilding injured tendons.