Hydroxyapatite Scaffold and Bioactive Factor Combination as a Tool to Improve Osteogenesis, In Vitro and In Vivo...

Mesenchymal stem cells have been widely investigated in the field of regenerative medicine and also used as a model to study the differentiation-induction properties of a variety of biomaterials. This study evaluates the osteoinductive potential of novel hydroxyapatite scaffolds functionalized with a phage-displayed peptide (SC1) selected via biopanning for its similarity to bone matrix proteins. The peptide, identified through sequence alignment as a mimotope of osteonectin (SPARC), was used to functionalize scaffolds. Results from SC1 were gathered at different time points (14, 28 and 46 days) and compared with those from nonfunctionalized hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffolds. In vitro experiments, by seeding human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs), indicated satisfactory biocompatibility for both types of scaffolds. Histochemical observations showed that SC1, better than HA scaffolds, was able to improve hASC osteogenic differentiation, as evaluated through Alizarin Red staining (showing on average a darker staining of 100%). An increase was also observed, especially at early stages (14 days), for osterix (up to 60% increase) and osteonectin immunoexpression (up to 50% increase). In in vivo experiments, cell-free scaffolds of both types were subcutaneously implanted into the backs of mice and analyzed after 2, 4, 8 and 16 weeks. Also, in this case, SC1 more effectively promoted the osteogenic differentiation of infiltrated resident cells. In particular, increased immunoexpression of osterix and osteonectin (+30% and 35%, respectively) was found already at 2 weeks. It can be concluded that SC1 scaffolds may represent a valuable tool to address critical-sized bone defects.