Electrically Stimulated Adipose Stem Cells on Polypyrrole-Coated Scaffolds for Smooth Muscle Tissue Engineering

Miina Björninen*, Kerry Gilmore, Jani Pelto, Riitta Seppänen-Kaijansinkko, Minna Kellomäki, Susanna Miettinen, Gordon Wallace, Dirk Grijpma, Suvi Haimi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

35 Citations (Scopus)
15 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We investigated the use of polypyrrole (PPy)-coated polymer scaffolds and electrical stimulation (ES) to differentiate adipose stem cells (ASCs) towards smooth muscle cells (SMCs). Since tissue engineering lacks robust and reusable 3D ES devices we developed a device that can deliver ES in a reliable, repeatable, and cost-efficient way in a 3D environment. Long pulse (1 ms) or short pulse (0.25 ms) biphasic electric current at a frequency of 10 Hz was applied to ASCs to study the effects of ES on ASC viability and differentiation towards SMCs on the PPy-coated scaffolds. PPy-coated scaffolds promoted proliferation and induced stronger calponin, myosin heavy chain (MHC) and smooth muscle actin (SMA) expression in ASCs compared to uncoated scaffolds. ES with 1 ms pulse width increased the number of viable cells by day 7 compared to controls and remained at similar levels to controls by day 14, whereas shorter pulses significantly decreased viability compared to the other groups. Both ES protocols supported smooth muscle expression markers. Our results indicate that electrical stimulation on PPy-coated scaffolds applied through the novel 3D ES device is a valid approach for vascular smooth muscle tissue engineering.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1015-1026
Number of pages12
JournalAnnals of biomedical engineering
Volume45
Issue number4
Early online date14 Nov 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2017

Keywords

  • Conductive polymers
  • Mesenchymal stem cells
  • Physical stimulation
  • Poly (trimethylene carbonate)
  • Vascular tissue engineering
  • 22/1 OA procedure

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