Table 3.
Advantages and disadvantages of using different human cells in bone tissue engineering research
| Cells | Use in bone tissue engineering | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Osteosarcoma cells | |||
| MG-63 | Initial adhesion and biocompatibility assay | Fast growth and easy cultivation | Pathological phenotype; low mineralization |
| Saos-2 | Initial adhesion and biocompatibility and osteodifferentiation tests | Fast growth and easy cultivation; a valuable pilot model due to high ALP activity and OCN expression | Pathological phenotype |
| Mesenchymal stem cells | |||
| AD-MSCs | Cytocompatibility tests; usable for therapeutic applications | Relevant results; easier to collect than BM-MSCs | Lower differentiation potential for osteogenesis than BM-MSCs |
| BM-MSCs | Cytocompatibility tests; usable for therapeutic applications | Relevant results; high differentiation potential for osteogenesis | Invasive method of collection; high rate of senescence depending on the age of the donor; long PDT; tumorigenic potential of immortalized BM-MSCs; ethics committee approval and patient's informed consent needed to access primary cells |
| HUC–MSCs | Better for regenerative medicine and therapies of the nervous system, liver and diabetes | Non-invasive method of collection; favorable proliferation capacity; low immunogenicity | Delayed and insufficient osteogenesis |
| DPSCs |
Testing of dental implants; peripheral nervous system regeneration therapy |
Easy collection from deciduous teeth and wisdom teeth; faster PDT compared to BM-MSCs and AD-MSCs; wide differentiation potential | Weak calcification; differentiation mainly into odontoblasts |
| G-MSCs | Osteointegration of dental implants; testing of scaffolds for bone regeneration; application in regenerative dentistry | Easy collection from gum; faster PDT compared to BM-MSCs and AD-MSCs; for clinical applications better than BM-MSCs; no tumorigenic potential | Reduced osteogenic differentiation potential compared to BM-MSC |
| USCs | Possibility of use for cartilage and bone regeneration is in the research phase | Easy, safe and cheap collection from urine | Use in bone engineering is not yet common; rather for genitourinary tract reconstructive surgery |
| D-MSCs | More often for use in cartilage engineering (osteoarthritis treatment) | Easy availability of the skin with high regenerative capacity | Use in bone engineering is not yet common |
| Osteoblasts | |||
| hFOB 1.19 | Model for the study of cytokines and growth factors effect on osteoblast physiology and differentiation | Easier to repeat experiments than with hOBs; spontaneous differentiation | Transfected cell line |
| hOBs | Model for studying the mechanism of bone formation, regulation of differentiation, molecular and biochemical mechanisms associated with disease development, to monitor potential therapeutic agents, or to test the biocompatibility of bone replacements | Physiological phenotype of osteoblast differentiating into osteocyte | Limited resources of hOBs; long-term cultivation leads to phenotypic drift; high rate of senescence; donor age, gender and health dependent culture; ethics committee approval and patient's informed consent needed to access primary cells |