Promoting and Orienting Axon Extension Using Scaffold-Free Dental Pulp Stem Cell Sheets.

ABSTRACT: Current treatments of facial nerve injury result in poor functional outcomes due to slow and inefficient axon regeneration and aberrant reinnervation. To address these clinical challenges, bioactive scaffold-free cell sheets were engineered using neurotrophic dental pulp stem/progenitor cells (DPCs) and their aligned extracellular matrix (ECM). DPCs endogenously supply high levels of neurotrophic factors (NTFs), growth factors capable of stimulating axonal regeneration, and an aligned ECM provides guidance cues to direct axon extension. Human DPCs were grown on a substrate comprising parallel microgrooves, inducing the cells to align and deposit a linearly aligned, collagenous ECM. The resulting cell sheets were robust and could be easily removed from the underlying substrate. DPC sheets p

SUBMITTER: Drewry MD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9821555 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature