Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine and College of Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Biomaterials. 2010 Jun;31(17):4695-705. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2010.02.037. Epub 2010 Mar 20.
Our previous study has illustrated that chitosan could enhance human anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) cells to exhibit a dramatic effect on increasing the gene expression of transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1), which is a specific gene for wound healing and collagen synthesis. However, human ACL cells could not adhere and proliferate well on chitosan. In order to overcome this drawback, we introduced polycaprolactone (PCL) into chitosan by the method of blending in this study. It was found that the morphology, viability and gene expression of human ACL cells on the chitosan/PCL blends could be effectively regulated. With the increase of PCL content in blends, human ACL cells presented more flatten shape, well-organized cytoskeleton, and higher proliferated ability. Compared to flatten shape, human ACL cells with round shape exhibited higher levels of mRNA expression of TGF-beta1 and collagen type III through 3-day culture period. Furthermore, these blended materials could upregulate protein synthesis of human ACL cells, which corresponded to their gene expressions. Therefore, it is possible to combine the advantages of chitosan and PCL to create a new blended material, which could control cellular morphologies specifically, and further to regulate the gene expression and protein production of cells for specific applications. We expected this concept, controlling the cell shape through biomaterial to modulate the behavior of cells, could provide a new vision for the material selection of ligament tissue engineering.
我们之前的研究表明壳聚糖可以增强人前交叉韧带 (ACL) 细胞,对增加转化生长因子β 1 (TGF-β 1) 的基因表达有显著作用,TGF-β 1 是一种特定的愈合和胶原合成基因。然而,人 ACL 细胞在壳聚糖上不能很好地附着和增殖。为了克服这一缺点,我们在本研究中通过共混的方法将聚己内酯 (PCL) 引入壳聚糖中。结果发现,人 ACL 细胞在壳聚糖/PCL 共混物上的形态、活力和基因表达可以得到有效调节。随着共混物中 PCL 含量的增加,人 ACL 细胞呈现出更扁平的形状、更有组织的细胞骨架和更高的增殖能力。与扁平形状相比,在 3 天培养期内,圆形形状的人 ACL 细胞 TGF-β 1 和胶原 III 型的 mRNA 表达水平更高。此外,这些共混材料可以上调人 ACL 细胞的蛋白质合成,这与其基因表达相对应。因此,有可能将壳聚糖和 PCL 的优点结合起来,创造一种新的共混材料,这种材料可以特异性地控制细胞形态,从而进一步调节细胞的基因表达和蛋白质产生,以满足特定的应用需求。我们希望通过生物材料控制细胞形状来调节细胞行为的这一概念,能够为韧带组织工程的材料选择提供新的视角。