Additive manufacturing is a promising method for producing customized 3D bioactive constructs for regenerative medicine. Here, 3D printed highly osteogenic scaffolds using nanoengineered ionic–covalent entanglement ink (NICE) for bone tissue engineering are reported. This NICE ink consists of ionic–covalent entanglement reinforced with Laponite, a 2D nanosilicate (nSi) clay, allowing for the printing of anatomic‐sized constructs with high accuracy. The 3D printed structure is able to maintain high structural stability in physiological conditions without any significant swelling or deswelling. The presence of nSi imparts osteoinductive characteristics to the NICE scaffolds, which is further augmented by depositing pluripotent stem cell‐derived extracellular matrix (ECM) on the scaffolds. This is achieved by stimulating human induced pluripotent stem cell‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (iP‐hMSCs) with 2‐chloro‐5‐nitrobenzanilide, a PPARγ inhibitor that enhances Wnt pathway, resulting in the deposition of an ECM characterized by high levels of collagens VI and XII found in anabolic bone. The osteoinductive characteristics of these bioconditioned NICE (bNICE) scaffolds is demonstrated through osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow derived human mesenchymal stem cells. A significant increase in the expression of osteogenic gene markers as well as mineralized ECM are observed on bioconditioned NICE (bNICE) scaffolds compared to bare scaffolds (NICE). The bioconditioned 3D printed scaffolds provide a unique strategy to design personalized bone grafts for in situ bone regeneration.
Implantation of stem cells for tissue regeneration faces significant challenges such as immune rejection and teratoma formation. Cell‐free tissue regeneration thus has a potential to avoid these problems. Stem cell derived exosomes do not cause immune rejection or generate malignant tumors. Here, exosomes that can induce osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are identified and used to decorate 3D‐printed titanium alloy scaffolds to achieve cell‐free bone regeneration. Specifically, the exosomes secreted by hMSCs osteogenically pre‐differentiated for different times are used to induce the osteogenesis of hMSCs. It is discovered that pre‐differentiation for 10 and 15 days leads to the production of osteogenic exosomes. The purified exosomes are then loaded into the scaffolds. It is found that the cell‐free exosome‐coated scaffolds regenerate bone tissue as efficiently as hMSC‐seeded exosome‐free scaffolds within 12 weeks. RNA‐sequencing suggests that the osteogenic exosomes induce the osteogenic differentiation by using their cargos, including upregulated osteogenic miRNAs (Hsa‐miR‐146a‐5p, Hsa‐miR‐503‐5p, Hsa‐miR‐483‐3p, and Hsa‐miR‐129‐5p) or downregulated anti‐osteogenic miRNAs (Hsa‐miR‐32‐5p, Hsa‐miR‐133a‐3p, and Hsa‐miR‐204‐5p), to activate the PI3K/Akt and MAPK signaling pathways. Consequently, identification of osteogenic exosomes secreted by pre‐differentiated stem cells and the use of them to replace stem cells represent a novel cell‐free bone regeneration strategy.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10446375
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Science
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 19
- ISSN:
- 2198-3844
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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