Abstract
Localized and long-term delivery of growth factors has been a long-standing challenge for stem cell-based tissue engineering. In the current study, a polymeric drug depot-anchoring hydrogel scaffold was developed for the sustained release of macromolecules to enhance the differentiation of stem cells. Self-assembling peptide (RADA16)-modified drug depots (RDDs) were prepared and anchored to a RADA16 hydrogel. The anchoring effect of RADA16 modification on the RDDs was tested both in vitro and in vivo. It was shown that the in vitro leakage of RDDs from the RADA16 hydrogel was significantly less than that of the unmodified drug depots (DDs). In addition, the in vivo retention of injected hydrogel-incorporated RDDs was significantly longer than that of hydrogel-incorporated unmodified DDs. A model drug, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), was encapsulated in RDDs (V-RDDs) as drug depot that was then anchored to the hydrogel. The release of VEGF could be sustained for 4 weeks. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) were cultured on the V-RDDs-anchoring scaffold and enhanced cell proliferation and differentiation were observed, compared with a VEGF-loaded scaffold. Furthermore, this scaffold laden with EPCs promoted neovascularization in an animal model of hind limb ischemia. These results demonstrate that self-assembling hydrogel-anchored drug-loaded RDDs are promising for localized and sustained drug release, and can effectively enhance the proliferation and differentiation of resident stem cells, thus lead to successful tissue regeneration.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 234-245 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of Controlled Release |
Volume | 261 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 10 Sep 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81361140344, 81690263, 81301974, 81472757) and National Key Research and Development Plan (2016YFE0119200). Thanks are given to Dr. Zhen Dong and Yanan Song from Zhongshan Hospital for their kind help with the Laser Doppler Perfusion Imaging process.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017
Keywords
- Endothelial progenitor cells
- PLGA
- RADA16 hydrogel
- Sustained release
- Tissue regeneration
- Vascular endothelial growth factor