Human mesenchymal stem cells and biomaterials interaction: a promising synergy to improve spine fusion

Purpose The bone regenerative medicine needs (i) in vitro functionally active osteoblasts, and/or (ii) the in vivo induction of the tissue. The bone tissue engineering seems to be a very promising approach for the effectiveness of orthopedic surgical procedures. Indeed, clinical applications are often hampered by the limited availability of bone allograft or substitutes. New biomaterials have been recently developed for the orthopaedic applications. The main characteristics of these scaffolds are the ability to induce the bone tissue formation by generating an appropriate environment for (i) the cell growth and (ii) recruiting precursor bone cells for the proliferation and differentiation. A new prototype of biomaterials known as “bioceramics” may own these features. Bioceramics are bone substitutes mainly composed by calcium and phosphate complex salt derivatives. Methods In this study the characteristics bioceramics bone substitutes have been tested with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) obtained from the bone marrow of adult orthopaedic patients. Results These cellular models can be employed to characterize in vitro the behavior of different biomaterials, which are used as bone void fillers or three dimensional scaffolds. Conclusions The cellular model used in our study, suggests that this in vitro model is an useful tool for investigating cytocompatibility and biological features of HA-derived scaffolds.