Role of Physico-Chemical and Cellular Conditions on the Bone Repair Potential of Plastically Compressed Collagen Hydrogels

Since their first description nearly 20 years ago, dense collagen hydrogels obtained by plastic compression have become popular scaffolds in tissue engineering. In particular, when seeded with dental pulp stem cells, they have demonstrated a great in vivo potential in cranial bone repair. Here, we investigated how physico-chemical and cell-seeding conditions could influence the formation and in vitro mineralization of these cellularized scaffolds. A qualitative assessment demonstrated that the gel stability before and after compression was highly sensitive to the conditions of fibrillogenesis, especially initial acid acetic and buffer concentrations. Gels with similar rheological properties but different fibrillar structures that exhibited different stabilities when used for the 3D culture of Stem cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous teeth (SHEDs) could be prepared. Finally, in our optimal physico-chemical conditions, mineralization could be achieved only using human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) at a high cell density. These results highlight the key role of fibrillogenic conditions and cell type/density on the bone repair potential of cell-laden plastically compressed collagen hydrogels.