Comparison of percentage of CD90-positive cells and osteogenic differentiation potential between mesenchymal stem cells grown on dish and nonwoven fabric.

Although nonwoven fabric (NWF) has been reported to be a candidate scaffold for the large-scale expansion of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the quality of cells grown in NWF has not been well clarified. In this report, MSCs grown in an NWF disc for 3 weeks showed higher osteogenic differentiation potential and percentage of CD90 (+) cells than MSCs grown on the bottom surface of dish. The amount of the extracellular matrix (ECM) per unit surface area of fibers was larger than that on the bottom surface of the dish in the first 2 weeks of culture. The osteogenic differentiation potential of MSCs inoculated onto cell-free ECM increased with increasing amount of ECM. The higher percentage of CD90 (+) cells and osteogenic differentiation potential of cells grown in an NWF disc than of cells grown on a dish might, at least in part, be due to the higher amount of ECM.