Abstract:
The aims of this study are to investigate the response including cell proliferation and cell attachment to osteopontin, collagen and mixed osteopontin/collagen substrates and to construct the osteopontin/collagen scaffold with evaluation of its biocompatibility to the cells in vitro. The study was performed by co-culturing human bone marrow stromal cells with bovine dermal collagen and recombinant rat osteopontin. MTT assay was employed to determine the cell proliferation resulted from the cells being exposed to four conditions; unexposed, exposed to collagen, exposed to osteopontin and exposed to mixed osteopontin/collagen. Cell attachment to these four conditioned surfaces and cell morphology on the scaffold were observed by a scanning electron microscope. The results showed that the number of cells exposed to the collagen and the mixed osteopontin/collagen significantly increased to 106.88 ± 3.85% and 118.12 ± 6.14% respectively (P <0.05), whereas the number of cells exposed to the osteopontin significantly decreased to 63.15 ± 8.03% when compared to the control group (P <0.05). Scanning electron microscopy demonstrated good cell attachment in collagen and the mixed collagen/osteopontin groups. When the cells cultured with osteopontin/collagen scaffold, there were cell proliferation and cell attachment into the scaffold. In conclusion, this study revealed that both collagen containing solutions enhance the human bone marrow stromal cell proliferation and attachment. The enhancement was increased with the addition of osteopontin. The osteopontin/collagen scaffold has good biocompatibility with human bone marrow stromal cells. These results suggest that this novel scaffold were advantageous to the stromal cells. Therefore, it might be worth introducing them to the field of bone regeneration.