Effects of mesenchymal stem cells therapy on the mechanical properties of healing patellar tendons in mice

Abstract

This project investigates the effect of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) on the biomechanical properties of healing patellar tendon. Murine patellar tendon injury model and allogeneic MSCs with Baxter Tisseel fibrin sealant are used. Natural healing, fibrin aided healing and fibrin-MSCs aided healing is studied in unilateral model. A defect is created with a 0.75mm biopsy punch on one randomly selected leg of 6 weeks old C57BL/6 mice and filled with treatment or without as stated by their grouping. They are allowed normal cage activity and harvested 6 weeks later for biomechanical tensile test. The stress-extension ratio (P-value=0.0000345), elastic modulus (P-value=0.0000203) and ultimate failure stress (P-value=0.000413) are different among the groups. Natural healing is the most superior, followed by fibrin-MSCs aided group and, lastly, fibrin aided group. Stress relaxation result shows no significant difference among the groups. We conclude, based on our data, that the application of MSCs using fibrin has no beneficial biomechanical effect on healing patellar tendon in mice and fibrin is observed to be detrimental to healing.