Extracellular Calcium Modulates Chondrogenic and Osteogenic Differentiation of Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells: A Novel Approach for Osteochondral Tissue Engineering Using a Single Stem Cell Source.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

We have previously shown that elevating extracellular calcium from a concentration of 1.8 to 8 mM accelerates and increases human adipose-derived stem cell (hASC) osteogenic differentiation and cell-mediated calcium accretion, even in the absence of any other soluble osteogenic factors in the culture medium. However, the effects of elevated calcium on hASC chondrogenic differentiation have not been reported. The goal of this study was to determine the effects of varied calcium concentrations on chondrogenic differentiation of hASC. We hypothesized that exposure to elevated extracellular calcium (8 mM concentration) in a chondrogenic differentiation medium (CDM) would inhibit chondrogenesis of hASC when compared to basal calcium (1.8 mM concentration) controls. We further hypothesized that a full osteochondral construct could be engineered by controlling local release of calcium to induce site-specific chondrogenesis and osteogenesis using only hASC as the cell source. Human ASC was cultured as micromass pellets in CDM containing transforming growth factor-β1 and bone morphogenetic protein 6 for 28 days at extracellular calcium concentrations of either 1.8 mM (basal) or 8 mM (elevated). Our findings indicated that elevated calcium induced osteogenesis and inhibited chondrogenesis in hASC. Based on these findings, stacked polylactic acid nanofibrous scaffolds containing either 0%

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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