Within bone, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) exist within the bone marrow stroma (BM-MSC) and the endosteal niche, as cells lining compact bone (CB-MSCs). This study isolated and characterised heterogeneous MSC populations from each niche and subsequently investigated the effects of extensive cell expansion, analysing population doublings (PDs)/cellular senescence, colony-forming efficiencies (CFEs), MSC cell marker expression, and osteogenic/adipogenic differentiation. CB-MSCs and BM-MSCs demonstrated similar morphologies and PDs, reaching 100 PDs. Both populations exhibited consistent telomere lengths (12–17 kb), minimal senescence, and positive telomerase expression. CB-MSCs (PD15) had significantly lower CFEs than PD50. CB-MSCs and BM-MSCs both expressed MSC (CD73/CD90/CD105); embryonic (Nanog) and osteogenic markers (Runx2, osteocalcin) but no hematopoietic markers (CD45). CB-MSCs (PD15) strongly expressed Oct4 and p16^INK4A. At early PDs, CB-MSCs possessed a strong osteogenic potency and low potency for adipogenesis, whilst BM-MSCs possessed greater overall bipotentiality for osteogenesis and adipogenesis. At PD50, CB-MSCs demonstrated reduced potency for both osteogenesis and adipogenesis, compared to BM-MSCs at equivalent PDs. This study demonstrates similarities in proliferative and mesenchymal cell characteristics between CB-MSCs and BM-MSCs, but contrasting multipotentiality. Such findings support further comparisons of human CB-MSCs and BM-MSCs, facilitating selection of optimal MSC populations for regenerative medicine purposes.

Advances in cell-based regenerative therapy create new opportunities for the treatment of bone-related disorders and injuries, by improving the reparative phase of bone healing. Apart from the classical approach of bone grafting, the application of cell-based therapies, particularly stem cells (SCs), has gained a lot of attention in recent years. SCs play an important role in regenerative therapy due to their excellent ability to differentiate into bone-forming cells. Regeneration of new bone is regulated by a wide variety of signalling molecules and intracellular networks, which are responsible for coordinating cellular processes. The activated signalling cascade is significantly involved in cell survival, proliferation, apoptosis, and interaction with the microenvironment and other types of cells within the healing site. Despite the increasing evidence from studies conducted on signalling pathways associated with bone formation, the exact mechanism involved in controlling the differentiation stage of transplanted cells is not well understood. Identifying the key activated pathways involved in bone regeneration may allow for precise manipulation of the relevant signalling molecules within the progenitor cell population to accelerate the healing process. The in-depth knowledge of molecular mechanisms would be advantageous in improving the efficiency of personalised medicine and targeted therapy in regenerative medicine. In this review, we briefly introduce the theory of bone repair mechanism and bone tissue engineering followed by an overview of relevant signalling pathways that have been identified to play an important role in cell-based bone regenerative therapy.

Hydrogels have potential uses in various biological applications because of their unique characteristics. Fine-tuning of agarose–alginate (Ag–Al) hydrogel components improves the mechanical characteristics of the final construct for cell encapsulation and transportation. Formulation of suitable dissolving agents may enable the release of encapsulated cells for further applications in laboratory or clinical settings. This study aimed at optimizing the composition of Ag–Al hydrogel beads and their dissolving agents for potential use in the transportation of stem cells. Various agarose, alginate, and CaCl₂ concentrations were tested to construct hydrogel beads. The degradation rate and swelling ratio of each hydrogel sample were recorded. The optimized Ag–Al hydrogels were used for encapsulation of stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED). Optimization of dissolving agents was performed and tested with the hydrogel-encapsulated cells. Data were statistically analyzed in SPSS. The selected concentration of Ag–Al hydrogels components was successfully demonstrated to encapsulate SHED, which remained viable until day 10. An average of 2 min was required for degradation of the hydrogel with encapsulated SHED by a dissolving agent consisting of 100 mM sodium citrate and 100 mM EDTA. The cell viability of SHED released after day 10 of encapsulation was 29.1%. Alteration of Ag-Al components has considerable influence on the mechanical properties of the constructed hydrogel. The feasibility of performing the optimized cell encapsulation protocol, as well as the dissolving step, may provide a useful guide for the transportation of viable cells between countries, for medical research.

Stem cells play an essential role in maintaining homeostasis, as well as participating in new tissue regeneration. Over the past 20 years, a great deal of effort has been made to investigate the behaviour of stem cells to enable their potential use in regenerative medicine. However, a variety of biological characteristics are known to exist among the different types of stem cells due to variations in the methodological approach, formulation of cell culture medium, isolation protocol and cellular niches, as well as species variation. In recent years, cell-based therapy has emerged as one of the advanced techniques applied in both medical and clinical settings. Cell therapies aim to treat and repair the injury sites and replace the loss of tissues by stimulating the repair and regeneration process. In order to enable the use of stem cells in regenerative therapies, further characterisation of cell behaviour, in terms of their proliferation and differentiation capacity, mainly during the quiescent and inductive state is regarded as highly necessary. The central focus of regenerative medicine revolves around the use of human cells, including adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells for cell-based therapy. The purpose of this review was to examine the existing body of literature on stem cell research conducted on cellular angiogenesis and migration, to investigate the validity of different strategies and variations of the cell type used. The information gathered within this review may then be shared with fellow researchers to assist in future research work, engaging in stem cell homing for cell-based therapy to enhance wound healing and tissue regeneration process.

Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) are widely available sources of stem cells that have been extensively studied for its capacity to differentiate into osteoblasts and endothelial cells and to support bone repair and regeneration. Collagen type 1 (Col-1) is a well-known extracellular matrix component, which plays a vital role in regulating the signaling pathway for osteoinduction of bone progenitor cells. However, the exact mechanism of Col-1 activation during stem cell osteogenesis remains unclear. Objectives This study aims to identify the key signalling pathway and proteins interaction associated with Col-1-induced osteogenesis of DPSCs. Methodology The localization of OCN protein was assessed by immunocytochemistry analysis, followed by Western blot analysis on OCN, AKT, p- AKT, Smad2/3, p-Smad2/3, ERK1/2, and p-ERK1/2 pathways. Protein profiling was performed using gel-free digestion and LC-MS/MS, followed by protein-protein interaction analysis using STRING online tools to assist in determination of link between various pathways. Results The data indicated that the PI3K/AKT pathway is the key signaling pathway involved in Col-1-induced DPSC, showing a significant impact and potential crosstalk with TGF-b/Smad and MAPK/ERK mainly via focal adhesion protein complexes. Conclusion The evidence suggests that PI3K/AKT signaling pathway is more dominant than the TGF-β/Smad and MAPK/ERK pathways, acting via stimulation of the focal adhesion protein complex. Together, these findings may provide deeper insight into cellular biology of differentiated cells for potential manipulation in bone tissue repair and regeneration.

Pro-oxidant therapy has gained attention as newly potential approach in combating oral cancer. However, there are lack of classification and comparative analysis on extensive literatures which focuses on the different strategies and efficacy of pro-oxidant based therapies. This review aims to investigate the development of pro-oxidant therapy in treatment of oral cancer, emphasising on the fundamental knowledge behind each method, the impacts of each pro-oxidant-based method on cancer cell lines, and the future application in clinical practices. The present scoping review is carried out according to the Arksey and O'Malley framework's four-stage scoping review technique. The search was conducted from different electronic research databases such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus to select relevant peer-reviewed studies. The search strategy includes keywords such as “strategies” “development”, “pro-oxidant”, therapy”, “oral”and “squamous cell carcinoma”. The articles were screened, by keeping in mind the inclusion and exclusion criteria, along with assessment for eligibility. The present study is registered with Open Science Framework (OSF), followed by PRISMA-ScR guidelines to increase the relevance for decision-making. 313 articles were selected by searching the literature databases, 250 were identified relevant to the present scoping review topic. Following the screening criteria, only 15 articles were included in the final review for detail analysis. The gathered data positively contribute to more discoveries of advanced techniques for the management of cancer with minimal toxicities to improve on treatment outcomes.