Hypothermic Storage of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Their Hydrogel Constructs
1Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Electronic Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Anhui, Hefei, P.R. China.
Background:
Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUMSCs) and hUMSCs-hydrogel constructs have great potential in clinical application. However, research about hypothermic storage of hUMSCs and hUMSCs-hydrogel constructs has not been fully investigated.
Objective:
To evaluate the cell survival without and with encapsulation (alginate, alginate with PVA) at 4 ºC and 25 ºC, respectively.
Materials And Methods:
Acridine orange/ethidium bromide (AO/EB) staining and fluorescence staining were used to evaluate cell viability during hypothermic storage.
Results:
Cells with encapsulation show significantly higher viability than cells without encapsulation at 4 ºC, while there was no obvious difference between viability of cells without and with encapsulation at 25 ºC. In addition, cells encapsulated with alginate and PVA show better viability than cells encapsulated with alginate alone. Moreover, cell viability at 25 ºC was significantly higher than cell viability at 4 ºC.
Conclusion:
hUMSCs aggregates and hUMSCs-hydrogel constructs can survive for 7 days by hypothermic storage at 25 ºC, which facilitates the cell delivery and application of hUMSCs and hUMSCs-hydrogel constructs in clinical medicine.
