Abstract
Rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell sheets (rBMSC sheets) are attractive for cell-based tissue engineering. However, methods of culturing rBMSC sheets are critically limited. In order to obtain intact rBMSC sheets, a light-induced cell sheet method was used in this study. TiO2 nanodot films were coated with (TL) or without (TN) laminin-521. We investigated the effects of laminin-521 on rBMSCs during cell sheet culturing. The fabricated rBMSC sheets were subsequently assessed to study cell sheet viability, reattachment ability, cell sheet thickness, collagen type I deposition, and multilineage potential. The results showed that laminin-521 could promote the formation of rBMSC sheets with good viability under hyperconfluent conditions. Cell sheet thickness increased from an initial 26.7 ± 1.5 μm (day 5) up to 47.7 ± 3.0 μm (day 10). Moreover, rBMSC sheets maintained their potential of osteogenic, adipogenic, and chondrogenic differentiation. This study provides a new strategy to obtain rBMSC sheets using light-induced cell sheet technology.