Prolonged survival of transplanted stem cells after ischaemic injury via the slow release of pro-survival peptides from a collagen matrix Nature Biomedical Engineering Lee, A. S., Inayathullah, ., Lijkwan, . A., Zhao, X., Sun, W., Park, S., Hong, W. X., Parekh, M. B., Malkovskiy, A. V., Lau, E., Qin, X., Pothineni,, . R., Sanchez-Freire, ., Kooreman, N. G., Ebert, A. D., Chan, C. K., Nguyen, P. K., Rajadas, J., Wu, J. C. 2018; 2 (2): 104–13

Abstract

Stem-cell-based therapies hold considerable promise for regenerative medicine. However, acute donor-cell death within several weeks after cell delivery remains a critical hurdle for clinical translation. Co-transplantation of stem cells with pro-survival factors can improve cell engraftment, but this strategy has been hampered by the typically short half-lives of the factors and by the use of Matrigel and other scaffolds that are not chemically defined. Here, we report a collagen-dendrimer biomaterial crosslinked with pro-survival peptide analogues that adheres to the extracellular matrix and slowly releases the peptides, significantly prolonging stem cell survival in mouse models of ischaemic injury. The biomaterial can serve as a generic delivery system to improve functional outcomes in cell-replacement therapy.

View details for DOI 10.1038/s41551-018-0191-4

View details for PubMedCentralID PMC5927627