Abstract
To advance molecular and cellular therapy into the clinic for peripheral nerve injury, modification of neural scaffolds with the extracellular matrix (ECM) of peripheral nerves has been established as a promising alternative to direct inclusion of support cells and/or growth factors within a neural scaffold, while cell-derived ECM proves to be superior to tissue-derived ECM in the modification of neural scaffolds. Based on the fact that bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), just like Schwann cells, are adopted as support cells within a neural scaffold, in this study we used BMSCs as parent cells to generate ECM for application in peripheral nerve tissue engineering. A chitosan nerve guidance conduit (NGC) and silk fibroin filamentous fillers were respectively prepared for co-culture with purified BMSCs, followed by decellularization to stimulate ECM deposition. The ECM-modified NGC and lumen fillers were then assembled into a chitosan-silk fibroin-based, BMSC-derived, ECM-modified neural scaffold, which was implanted into rats to bridge a 10 mm-long sciatic nerve gap. Histological and functional assessments after implantation showed that regenerative outcomes achieved by our engineered neural scaffold were better than those achieved by a plain chitosan-silk fibroin scaffold, and suggested the benefits of BMSC-derived ECM for peripheral nerve repair. Copyright
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