A therapeutic strategy for spinal cord defect: human dental follicle cells combined with aligned PCL/PLGA electrospun material.

Stem cell implantation has been utilized for the repair of spinal cord injury; however, it shows unsatisfactory performance in repairing large scale lesion of an organ. We hypothesized that dental follicle cells (DFCs), which possess multipotential capability, could reconstruct spinal cord defect (SCD) in combination with biomaterials. In the present study, mesenchymal and neurogenic lineage characteristics of human DFCs (hDFCs) were identified. Aligned electrospun PCL/PLGA material (AEM) was fabricated and it would not lead to cytotoxic reaction; furthermore, hDFCs could stretch along the oriented fibers and proliferate efficiently on AEM. Subsequently, hDFCs seeded AEM was transplanted to restore the defect in rat spinal cord. Functional observation was performed but results showed no statistical significance. The following histologic analyses proved that AEM allowed nerve fibers to pass through, and implanted hDFCs could express oligodendrogenic lineage maker Olig2 in vivo which was able to contribute to remyelination. Therefore, we concluded that hDFCs can be a candidate resource in neural regeneration. Aligned electrospun fibers can support spinal cord structure and induce cell/tissue polarity. This strategy can be considered as alternative proposals for the SCD regeneration studies.