Macrophage and scaffold combination accelerates healing
18 Aug 2016 by Evoluted New Media
Ceramic scaffolds and macrophages have been shown to aid cellular healing more than current clinical methods by scientists at Drexel University.
Ceramic scaffolds and macrophages have been shown to aid cellular healing more than current clinical methods by scientists at Drexel University.
People recovering from injuries too large to be repaired by the body such as tumour removals or gunshot wounds, require the use of clinical scaffolds to enable inflammatory cells to aid healing. Researchers are currently trying to find the best combinations of materials to enable this to happen.
Dr Kara Spiller, from Drexel University in Pennsylvania and involved in the research, said: “Your cells can't swim. Any time you have a large piece of bone missing, a scaffold is needed to close that gap.”
Scientists from the University of Sydney had previously designed scaffolds that promoted bone regeneration in animals but they were unsure of the exact reason why this occurred. Researchers from Drexel suggested it may be linked to the macrophages and investigated further.
Macrophages — as part of the inflammatory response — can promote tissue repair but can also cause disease when over expressed. From this study monocyte derived cells were seeded onto three different types of scaffold with their gene expressions studied after several days. Comparisons were also made between cells that were in direct contact with the scaffold to those that were separated by a membrane.
The ceramic scaffolds were found to transform macrophages into an M2c phenotype, expressing genes that are associated with remodelling — this has not previously been seen in scaffolds approved to be used in humans. The study also showed the macrophages need to be in direct contact with the scaffolds to work.
Spiller said: “The macrophages degrade the scaffolds and shape them into something new. And that's the Holy Grail of tissue engineering — that you make a scaffold that replaces itself with healthy tissue.”
The scientists will now carry out further research to find out what specific property of the scaffold, such as composition or texture, induces this behaviour in the macrophages. This information could help biomedical engineers design scaffolds and drug delivery strategies to promote healing.
