| Although autogenous bone graft is the gold standard for bone repair and reconstruction over the years, there are limits to its mass as well as potential complications associated with donor site morbidity such as blood loss, prolonged time during the operation, wound scar and pain. Worldwide attempts, therefore, have given rise to the development of various safe and effective bone graft alternatives with osteoconductive or/and osteoinductive potentials. Bone tissue engineering technology has rapidly gained increasing popularity with the advances in material science. However, several aspects of scaffold-based tissue engineering technology remain in question, which circumvented its wide application in the clinic. These include the origins of seed cells, cell signaling regulation for their proliferation and differentiation, and the selection of scaffold materials, etc.Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) are non hematopoietic stem cells in the marrow. They have been proposed as an ideal source of seed cells in that they not only can support hemotopoiesis, but can differentiate into osteocytes, chondrocytes and adipocytes under appropriate culture conditions and self-renew in vitro.To date, BMSC from various species such as human, rat, mouse, chicken, calve, dog and pig, have been isolated. Since Friedenstein (1976) first isolated BMSC based on their tendency to adhere to plastic and reported their osteogenic potential, numerous studies concerning characteristics and mechanism of differentiation have been performed. Differentiation commitment of BMSC is controlled by complex hormonal and local factors, which converge onto a series of transcription factors. Osteogenesis is generally characterized by appearance of...
|
PDF Full Text Request