HEALTH NEWS

Study Title:

Vitamin C treatment elevates telomerase activity.

Study Abstract

Cell sheet engineering has been developed as an alternative approach to improve mesenchymal stem cell-mediated tissue regeneration. In this study, we found that vitamin C (Vc) was capable of inducing telomerase activity in periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs), leading to the up-regulated expression of extracellular matrix type I collagen, fibronectin, and integrin β1, stem cell markers Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog as well as osteogenic markers RUNX2, ALP, OCN. Under Vc treatment, PDLSCs can form cell sheet structures because of increased cell matrix production. Interestingly, PDLSC sheets demonstrated a significant improvement in tissue regeneration compared with untreated control dissociated PDLSCs and offered an effective treatment for periodontal defects in a swine model. In addition, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell sheets and umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell sheets were also well constructed using this method. The development of Vc-mediated mesenchymal stem cell sheets may provide an easy and practical approach for cell-based tissue regeneration.

Study Information

Wei F, Qu C, Song T, Ding G, Fan Z, Liu D, Liu Y, Zhang C, Shi S, Wang S.
Vitamin C treatment promotes mesenchymal stem cell sheet formation and tissue regeneration by elevating telomerase activity.
J Cell Physiol
2013 September
Molecular Laboratory for Gene Therapy and Tooth Regeneration, Beijing Key Laboratory of Tooth Regeneration and Function Reconstruction, Capital Medical University School of Stomatology, Beijing, China.