Interfacing Sca-1(pos) Mesenchymal Stem Cells with Biocompatible Scaffolds with Different Chemical Composition and Geometry

An immortalized murine mesenchymal stem cell line (mTERT-MSC) enriched for Lin(neg)/Sca-1(pos) fraction has been obtained through the transfection of MSC with murine TERT and single-cell isolation. Such cell line maintained the typical MSC self-renewal capacity and continuously expressed MSC phenotype. Moreover, mTERT-MSC retained the functional features of freshly isolated MSC in culture without evidence of senescence or spontaneous differentiation events. Thus, mTERT-MSC have been cultured onto PLA films, 30 and 100 μm PLA microbeads, and onto unpressed and pressed HYAFF-11 scaffolds. While the cells adhered preserving their morphology on PLA films, clusters of mTERT-MSC were detected on PLA beads and unpressed fibrous scaffolds. Finally, mTERT-MSC were not able to colonize the inner layers of pressed HYAFF-11. Nevertheless, such cell line displayed the ability to preserve Sca-1 expression and to retain multilineage potential when appropriately stimulated on all the scaffolds tested.