• Journal of the Korean Orthopaedic Association
• /
• v.54 no.6
• /
• pp.478-489
• /
• 2019

Osteoarthritis is a disease characterized by the progression of articular cartilage erosion, that increases pain during joint motion and reduces the ability to withstand mechanical stress, which in turn limits joint mobility and function. Damage to articular cartilage due to trauma or degenerative injury is considered a major cause of arthritis. Numerous studies and attempts have been made to regenerate articular cartilage. In the case of partial degenerative cartilage changes, microfracture and autologous chondrocyte implantation have been proposed as surgical treatment methods, but they have disadvantages such as insufficient mutual binding to the host cells, inaccurate cell delivery, and deterioration of healthy cartilage. Stem cell-based therapies have been developed to compensate for this. This review summarizes the drawbacks and consequences of various cartilage regeneration methods and describes the various attempts to treat cartilage damage. In addition, this review will discuss cartilage regeneration, particularly mesenchymal stem cell engineering-based therapies, and explore how to treat future cartilage regeneration using mesenchymal stem cells.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.32 no.7
• /
• pp.567-577
• /
• 2022

Recently, the prevalence of ischemic diseases, such as ischemic heart disease, cerebral ischemia, and peripheral arterial disease, has been continuously increasing due to the aging population. The current standardized treatment for ischemic diseases is reperfusion therapy through pharmacotherapy and surgical approaches. Although reperfusion therapy may restore the function of damaged arteries, it is not effective at restoring the function of the surrounding tissues that have been damaged due to ischemia. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new treatment strategy that can safely and effectively treat ischemic damage and restore the function of surrounding tissues. To overcome these limitations, stem cell-based therapy to regenerate the damaged region has been studied as a promising strategy for ischemic vascular diseases. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be isolated from diverse tissues and have been shown to be promising for the treatment of ischemic disease by regenerating damaged tissues through immunomodulation, the promotion of angiogenesis, and the secretion of various relevant factors. Moreover, new approaches to enhancing MSC function, such as cell priming or enhancing transplantation efficiency using a 3D culture method, have been studied to increase stem cell therapeutic efficacy. In this review, we provide various strategies by which MSCs are used to treat ischemic diseases, and we discuss the challenges of MSC transplantation, such as the differentiation, proliferation, and engraftment of MSCs at the ischemic site.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.20 no.8
• /
• pp.618-626
• /
• 2019

Stem cell therapy is not expected to bestow any therapeutic benefit because of the low engraftment rates after transplantation.Various cell-carrying scaffolds have been developed in order to overcome this problem. When the scaffold is formed by 3-dimensional (3D) printing, it is possible to create various shapes of scaffolds for specific regions of injury. At the same time, scaffolds provide stem cells as therapeutic-agents and mechanically support an injured region. PCL is not only cost effective, but it is also a widely used material for 3D printing. Therefore, rapid and economical technology development can be achieved when PCL is printed and used as a cell carrier. Yet PCL materials do not perform well as cell carriers, and only a few cells survive on the PCL surface. In this study, we tried to determine the conditions that maximize the cell-loading capacity on the PCL surface to overcome this issue. By applying a plasma treated condition and then collagen coating known to improve the cell loading capacity, it was confirmed that the 3% collagen coating after plasma treatment showed the best cell engraftment capacity during 72 hours after cell loading. By applying the spheroid cell culture method and scaffold structure change, which can affect the cell loading ability, the spheroid cell culture methods vastly improved cell engraftment, and the scaffold structure did not affect the cell engraftment properties. We will conduct further experiments using PCL material as a cell carrier and as based the excellent results of this study.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.99-108
• /
• 2004

Purpose: The ability to noninvasively track the migration of neural progenitor cells would have significant clinical and research implications. We generated stably transfected F3 human neural progenitor cells with human sodium/iodide symporter (hNIS) for noninvasively tracking F3. In this study, the expression patterns of hNIS gene in F3-NIS were examined according to the cultured time and the epigenetic modulation. Materials and Methods: F3 human neural stem cells had been obtained from Dr. Seung U. Kim (Ajou University, Suwon, Korea). hNIS and hygromycin resistance gene were linked with IRES (Internal Ribosome Entry Site) under control of CMV promoter. This construct was transfected to F3 with Liposome. To investigate the restoration of hNIS gene expression in F3-NIS, cells were treated with demethylating agent (5-Azacytidine) and Histone deacetylase inhibitor (Trichostatin A: TSA). The expression of hNIS was measured by I-125 uptake assay and RT-PCR analysis. Results: The iodide uptake of the F3-NIS was higher 12.86 times than F3 cell line. According to the cell passage number, hNIS expression in F3-NIS gradually diminished. After treatment of 5-Azacytidine and TSA with serial doses (up to $20{\mu}M$, up to 62.5nM, respectively) for 24 hours, I-125 uptake and mRNA of hNIS in F3-NIS were increased. Conclusion: These results suggest that hNIS transfected F3 might undergo a change in its biological characters by cell passage. Therefore, the gene ex[ressopm of exogenous gene transferred human stem cell might be affected to the epigenetic modulation such as promoter methylation and Histone deacetylation and to the cell culture conditions.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.247-265
• /
• 2008

Objectives: Many types of liver diseases can damage regenerative potential of mature hepatocytes, hepatic progenitor cells or oval cells. In such cases, a stem cell-based therapy can be an alternative therapeutic option. We examined whether human amnion-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HAM) and human umbilical cord-derived stem cells (HUC) could differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells as therapeutic cells for the liver diseases. Methods: HAM and HUC were isolated from the amnion and umbilical cord of the volunteers after a caesarean section with informed consent. In order to differentiate these cells into hepatocyte-like cells, cells were cultivated in hepatogenic medium using culture plates coated with fibronectin. Effects of hepatocyte growth factor, L-ascorbic acid 2-phosphate, insulin premixture fibroblast growth gactor 4, dimethylsulfoxide, oncostatin M and/or dexamethasone were examined on the hepatic differentiation. After differentiation, the cells were analyzed by RT-PCR, immunocytochemistry, immunoblotting, albumin ELISA, urea assay and periodic acid-schiffs staining. Results: Initial fibroblast-like appearance of HAM and HUC changed to a round shape during culture in the hepatogenic medium. However, in all hepatogenic conditions examined, HUC secreted more amounts of albumin or urea into medium than HAM. Expression of some of hepatocyte-specific genes increased and expression of new genes were observed in HUC following cultivation in hepatogenic medium. Results of immunocytochemistry and immunoblotting analyses demonstrated that HUC secreted albumin into the culture medium. PAS staining further demonstrated that HUC could store glycogen inside of the cells. Conclusions: Both HUC and HAM could differentiate into albumin-secreting, hepatocyte-like cells. Under the same hepatogenic conditions examined, HUC more efficiently differentiated into hepatocyte-like cells compared with the HAM. The results suggest that HUC and HAM could be used as sources of stem cells for the cell-based therapeutics such as in liver diseases.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.52 no.7
• /
• pp.824-831
• /
• 2009

Purpose : We aimed to investigate the efficacy of and functional recovery after intracerebral transplantation of different doses of mouse mesenchymal stem cells (mMSCs) in immature rat brain with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Methods : Postnatal 7-days-old Sprague-Dawley rats, which had undergone unilateral HI operation, were given stereotaxic intracerebral injections of either vehicle or mMSCs and then tested for locomotory activity in the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th week of the stem cell injection. In the 8th week, Morris water maze test was performed to evaluate the learning and memory dysfunction for a week. Results : In the open field test, no differences were observed in the total distance/the total duration (F=0.412, P=0.745) among the 4 study groups. In the invisible-platform Morris water maze test, significant differences were observed in escape latency (F=380.319, P<0.01) among the 4 groups. The escape latency in the control group significantly differed from that in the high-dose mMSC and/or sham group on training days 2-5 (Scheffe's test, P<0.05) and became prominent with time progression (F=6.034, P<0.01). In spatial probe trial and visible-platform Morris water maze test, no significant improvement was observed in the rats that had undergone transplantation. Conclusion : Although the rats that received a high dose of mMSCs showed significant recovery in the learning-related behavioral test only, our data support that mMSCs may be used as a valuable source to improve outcome in HIE. Further study is necessary to identify the optimal dose that shows maximal efficacy for HIE treatment.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.35-41
• /
• 2005

This study was carried out for development of effective preservation on animal genetic resources. Spermatogonia cells are the germline stem cells and they can be restored to adult animal with proliferation and differentiation intentionally. When the spermatogonia cells were purified from seminiferous tubules and were cultured at $32^{\circ}C$, the cells were actively proliferated. The culture medium consisted of TCM199 plus $10\%$ FCS and coculture with Sertoli cells supported cultivation of spermatogonia cells. By passing 40 days of incubation, spermatogonia cells formed the germline colony or shape of ES-like colony or reconstruction of pseudo-seminifcrous tubule shape. At 40 days, the cultured cells were no sign for differentiation to spermatocyte or spermatid. The experiment of induced differentiation of this cells is needed.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.39 no.7 s.264
• /
• pp.511-519
• /
• 2006

Background: Loss of cardiomyocytes in the myocardial infarction leads to regional contractile dysfunction, and necrotized cardiomyocytes in infracted ventricular tissues are progressively replaced by fibroblasts forming scar tissue. Although cardiomyoplasty, or implantation of ventricular assist device or artificial heart was tried in refractory heart failure, the cardiac transplantation was the only therapeutic modality because these other therapeutic strategies were not permanent. Cell transplantation is tried instead of cardiac transplantation, especially bone marrow is the most popular donated organ. But because bone marrow aspiration procedure is invasive and painful, and it had the fewer amounts of cellular population, the adipose tissue is recommended for harvesting of mesenchymal stem cells. Material and Method: After adipose tissues were extracted from abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue and intra-abdominal adipose tissue individually, the cellular components were obtained by same method. These cellular components were tried to transformation with the various titers of 5-azacytidine to descript the appropriate concentration of 5-azacytidine and possibility of transformation ability of adipose tissue. Group 1 is abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue and Group 2 is intra-abdominal adipose tissue-retroperitoneal adipose tissue and omentum. Cellular components were extracted by collagenase and $NH_4Cl$ et al, and these components were cultured by non-induction media - DMEM media containing 10% FBS and inducted by none, $3{\mu}mol/L,\;6{\mu}mol/L,\;and\;9{\mu}mol/L$ 5-azacytidine after the 1st and 2nd subculture. After 4 weeks incubation, tile cell blocks were made, immunostaining was done with the antibodies of CD34, heavy myosin chain, troponin T, and SMA. Result: Immunostaining of the transformed cells for troponin T was positive in the $6{\mu}mol/L\;&\;9{\mu}mol/L$ 5-azacytidine of Group 1 & 2, but CD34 and heavy myosin chain antibodies were negative and SMA antibody was positive in the $3{\mu}mol/L\;&\;6{\mu}mol/L$ 5-azacytidne of Group 2. Conclusion: These observations confirm that adult mesenchymal stem cells isolated from the abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissues and intra-abdominal adipose tissues can be chemically transformed into cardiomyocytes. This can potentially be a source of autologous cells for myocardial repair.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
• /
• v.53 no.12
• /
• pp.935-948
• /
• 2015

목적: 법랑기질 유도체(EMD)가 사람 치주인대 줄기세포(hPDLSC)의 조직 형성능에 미치는 영향을 in vitro와 in vivo 분석 모델을 이용해 평가한다. 재료 및 방법: hPDLSC를 배양하여 운반체와 함께 면역 억제된 쥐 등에 이식하였다; (1)대조군: EMD 처치하지 않은 운반체에 심어진 hPDLSC군 ($EMD^-/hPDLSC^+$), (2)실험군: EMD 처치한 운반체에 심어진 hPDLSC군 ($EMD^+/hPDLSC^+$). 각 군당 5마리씩 시행하고 8주 후 희생하였다. 조직학적, 조직계측학적 분석을 통해 형성된 백악질의 면적과 백악세포의 수 그리고 샤피 섬유의 수를 계측하였으며 면역조직화학적 분석을 통해 백악질과 교원질 형성을 평가하였다. 또한 in vitro에서 hPDLSC의 수용성 교원질과 glycosaminoglycan 형성에 대한 EMD의 효과를 분석하였다. 결과: 조직학적 분석에서 교원질성 치주 인대 조직이 실험군에서 현저하게 많이 생성된 것을 관찰할 수 있었다. 형성된 백악질의 면적과 백악세포의 수는 군 간 차이가 없었으나, 새롭게 형성된 샤피 섬유의 수는 실험군에서 대조군보다 유의하게 많았다(p<0.05). 교원질 형성에 대한 면역조직 화학적 분석 결과, 실험군에서 I, III형 교원질과 hydroxyproline의 발현이 높았다. 또한 in vitro에서 hPDLSC에 의한 수용성 교원질과 glycosaminoglycan 형성이 EMD의 농도에 비례하여 증가하였다 (p<0.05). 결론: EMD는 hPDLSC에 의한 샤피 섬유 및 교원질 생성을 증가시키고, 이는 새로운 백악질의 기능적 부착과 치주조직 재생에 중요한 역할을 한다.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.81-88
• /
• 2016

There are various factors i.e. donor cell type, culture system as well as technical procedures which influence the pre-implantation embryonic development; however, may attempts have been made and still it is under investigation to improve the cloning efficiency using somatic cell nuclear transfer technique. It is has been investigated that stem cells like mesenchymal stem cell are able to more efficiently reprogram and reactivate the expression of early embryonic genes to promote nuclear transfer efficiency. In addition, Oct4 expression plays a pivotal role in early embryo development. In the present study, we investigated distribution of Oct4 expression and changes of apoptosis and total cell number in nuclear transfer blastocyst after using Oct4 transfected bone marrow stem cell as donor cells. Although Oct4-RFP expression was observed across blastocyst, more concentrated intensity was shown at hatched region in blastocyst on day 7. Reduction of apoptotic bodies was revealed in Oct4 transfected blastocyst by TUNEL staining, however, there was no significant difference in total cell number between Oct4 transfected and non-transfected nuclear transfer embryos. In conclusion, Oct4 transfected donor cells exhibited higher expression in hatching sight in day 7 blastocyst and were able to prevent apoptosis compared to non-transfected donor cells.