Allografts remain the clinical gold standard for treatment of massive bone defects but exhibit minimal engraftment and a 60%, 10-year post implantation failure rate due to microcrack propagation and fibrotic non-unions. In contrast, autografts completely heal, mediated by the periosteum, a thin layer of tissue housing periosteal cells (PCs) with similar proliferative and differentiation capacities as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Growing evidence suggests that periosteum-mediated autograft healing is due to PC paracrine factor release as PCs persist at autografts for only ~3 weeks during healing and do not contribute to new tissue formation. Herein, we demonstrate that hydrolytically degradable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels designed to mediate MSC transplantation to and persistence at the allograft surface can mimic PC mediated autograft healing. Using a murine segmental defect model, periosteum mimetic-coated allografts exhibit a 1.4-fold increase in host-mediate vascularization and a 1.9-fold increase in callus bone formation as compared to allograft only controls (Figure 1).

Promoting allograft healing and remodeling by tissue engineering the periosteum

245th National Meeting (2013)

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