Biodegradable microparticles as scaffolds for cell therapy

Abstract

Cell therapy is promising strategy that has attracted a lot of attention recently regarding regeneration of diverse tissues and treatment of various pathological conditions. Despite its great potential, several issues still need to be addressed. Among them administration route and dose, microenvironment conditions and host immune response are recognized as a major causes which lead to cells transplantation failure. In this work it is presented novel microstructural system based on biodegradable polymer poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) and combination of biocompatible polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and chitosan, as a scaffold for human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) growth. The obtained microparticles with diameter 200-600 μm showed full biocompatibility with human hMSCs. Besides serving as a solid support, polymeric particles provided controlled release of contrast agent - gadolinium fluoride nanoparticles (Gd-NP) up to 5 weeks. The release of Gd-NP is enhanced by acidic conditions. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the samples embedded in 1% agar showed that contrast enhancement in T1-weighted (T1w) MR images is influenced by the amount of released Gd-NP. Based on these preliminary results, presented theranostic system could be considered for cells grafting.