Biomechanically and biochemically functional scaffold for recruitment of endogenous stem cells to promote tendon regeneration

Tendon regeneration highly relies on biomechanical and biochemical cues in the repair microenvironment. Herein, we combined the decellularized bovine tendon sheet (DBTS) with extracellular matrix (ECM) from tendon-derived stem cells (TDSCs) to fabricate a biomechanically and biochemically functional scaffold (tECM-DBTS), to provide a functional and stem cell ECM-based microenvironment for tendon regeneration. Our prior study showed that DBTS was biomechanically suitable to tendon repair. In this study, the biological function of tECM-DBTS was examined in vitro, and the efficiency of the scaffold for Achilles tendon repair was evaluated using immunofluorescence staining, histological staining, stem cell tracking, biomechanical and functional analyses. It was found that tECM-DBTS increased the content of bioactive factors and had a better performance for the proliferation, migration and tenogenic differentiation of bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMSCs) than DBTS. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that tECM-DBTS promoted tendon regeneration and improved the biomechanical properties of regenerated Achilles tendons in rats by recruiting endogenous stem cells and participating in the functionalization of these stem cells. As a whole, the results of this study demonstrated that the tECM-DBTS can provide a bionic microenvironment for recruiting endogenous stem cells and facilitating in situ regeneration of tendons.