CONTROLLING STEM CELL FATE VIA HIGHLY ORGANIZED 2.5-DIMENSIONAL BIO-INSTRUCTIVE FIBROUS SCAFFOLDS
Open Access
- Author:
- Buluk, Merve
- Graduate Program:
- Bioengineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- May 07, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Justin Brown, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Spencer Szczesny, Committee Member
William Hancock, Committee Member - Keywords:
- mesenchymal stem cell
osteogenesis
nanofiber
additive manufacturing
microRNA
cell-material interactions
bio-instructive scaffolds - Abstract:
- Approximately 3 million procedures are performed due to musculoskeletal tissue injuries in the United States each year. This leads to an increased financial pressure in healthcare and a loss in patient work days [1]. Since musculoskeletal tissues are essentially bridging two dissimilar tissues, it is crucial to address the varied tissue types and functions as well as the microenvironment. Current replacement strategies in musculoskeletal tissue regeneration and repair often fail due to unappreciation of this variety. Hence, the lack of vascularization, nutrition and waste transport, and cell types can lead to failure in the scaffolds leading to further financial burden and loss in patient work days, as well as further physical pain to the patient. A combination of physical, biological, and chemical cues is needed to create the unique structural transitions and regenerative mechanisms that native tissue interfaces provide [2]. An approach that would benefit the goal of regenerating and repairing the musculoskeletal tissues includes the manufacture of a native-like microenvironment incorporated with bio-instructive biomedical material scaffolds that would control stem cell behaviors. For this purpose, materials and structural cues are great tools to use. In this study, it is hoped that using structurally organized nanofibers of biomedical materials, we can control stem cell behaviors, and this will lead to increased levels of certain miRNAs -that are osteogenesis markers- resulting in changes in stem cell fate. We also seek to demonstrate relative gene expression differences of the cells seeded on scaffolds with different nanofiber orientations.