Investigation on phenotypes of macrophages in transplantation of engineered tissues and its application to regenerative medicine

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24592981
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Surgical dentistry
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: YUKO FUJIHARA 東京大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 特任助教 (50466744)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): HOSHI Kazuto 東京大学, 医学部附属病院, 准教授 (30344451) ; MORI Yoshiyuki 自治医科大学, 医学部, 教授 (70251296)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): TAKATO Tsuyoshi 東京大学, 医学部附属病院, 教授 (90171454)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 再生医療 / 軟骨再生 / 組織反応

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we investigated the properties of macrophages in transplantation of tissue-engineered cartilage. As to methods, human auricular chondrocytes were cultured and embedded in polylactic acid scaffold, and then transplanted subcutaneously in BALB/c-nu/nu mice. Immunohitochemical localization of F4/80-positive cells was increased by 2 weeks. Meanwhile, M1-prone macrophages were dominant in the early-stage of transplantation up to around 2 weeks, and then M2-prone macrophages surpassed them after that. Furthermore, suppressing macrophages with clodronate liposome immediate after transplantation increased the accumulation of sGAG at eight weeks. It was therefore suggested that suppression of early-stage macrophages, which were considered to be M1-prone, could be advantageous for cartilage regeneration.

Free Research Field

再生医療