The Contribution of Endogenous and Exogenous Stem Cells in Fracture Repair
Date
2019-12-17
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Throughout the lifespan, bone remodels in response to damage, such as fracture. However, diseases such as osteoporosis can cause impaired bone healing, increasing the risk of progression to non-repairing defects called fracture non-unions. Promoting the healing of fracture non-unions is a promising target for bone tissue engineering due to the limited success of current clinical treatment methods. There has been significant research on the use of stem cells with and without biomaterial scaffolds to treat bone fractures due to their promising regenerative capabilities. However, the relative roles of transplanted stem cells (exogenous stem cells) and stem cells found naturally in the body (endogenous stem cells) and their overall contribution to in vivo fracture repair is not well understood, thereby delaying the translation of new tissue engineering therapies to the clinic. The purpose of this research was to determine the interaction between exogenous and endogenous stem cells and biomaterials during bone fracture healing. This study was conducted using a burr-hole fracture model in a mesenchymal stem cell lineaging-tracing mouse. Burr-hole fractures were treated with collagen-I biomaterial loaded with and without green fluorescent protein tagged induced pluripotent stem cells. Using lineage-tracing, the roles of exogenous and endogenous stem cells during bone fracture repair could be elucidated. It was determined that in both a normal and impaired model of fracture healing treatment with exogenous stem cells did not result in improved bone formation and did not promote the recruitment of endogenous stem cells. However, treatment with exogenous stem cells in an impaired model of healing may offer healing advantages compared to in a normal model of healing. The outcomes of this study provide fundamental knowledge required for developing more effective stem cell and biomaterial therapies to treat bone fractures.
Description
Keywords
Bone, Stem cells, Biomaterials, Fracture repair
Citation
Ferrie, L. E. (2019). The Contribution of Endogenous and Exogenous Stem Cells in Fracture Repair (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.