Osteogenesis of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Cultured on Silk Biomaterials: Comparison of Adenoviral Gene and Protein Delivery of Bmp2

INTRODUCTION: Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) are known to drive differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) along the osteogenic lineage. Bone tissue engineering and gene therapy based on MSC and a silk biomaterial were combined to study osteogenesis in vitro. The objective of this study was the comparison of hMSC differentiation in response to locally produced BMP2 as compared to BMP2 protein supplemented to the culture medium. METHODS: Cells were infected with 25 MOI of virus, encoding for BMP2 (Ad -BMP2 group). Upon seeding on 3D silk scaffolds constructs were cultured for 4 weeks and BMP 2 released into the culture medium was measured by ELISA. The experiment was repeated with uninfected hMSCs (BMP2 protein group) adding the same concentrations of protein as measured in the AdBMP2 group.