From Mesenchymal Stromal Cells to Cartilage and Bone: A Collection of Methods

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Angela Rita Armiento

AO Research Institute Davos

Dr. Angela R. Armiento complated her BSc in Biotechnology and MSc in Medical Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Parma (IT) in 2010. In 2011 she joined the team of Prof. C. De Bari at the Institute of Medical Sciences (University of Aberdeen, UK) and completed her PhD in 2015 with a thesis entitled 'Investigating endogenous mesenchymal stem cells to understand their role in articular cartilage repair'. Supported by an OARSI collaborative scholarship she visited the Orthopaedics Regeneration Program at the AO Research Institute Davos (ARI) which she then joined as a post-doc. Since 2020 she is a research scientist in the Progenitor Cell Biology and Mechanoregulation team lead by Prof. Martin Stoddart. Her main area of interests are the biological activity of human MSCs during endochondral differentiation, particularly the influence of mechanical stimuli and additional cell types and identification of biomarkers and cell phenotypes able to predict MSC fate during in vitro expansion and differentiation.

Collection Overview

Adult mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) can be derived from different tissues including but not limited to bone marrow, synovium, and adipose tissue. The potential of these cells to regenerate bone and cartilage puts them in the spotlight of cell therapy for musculoskeletal injuries and disorders.It has become evident that MSCs can sense the surrounding matrix and can communicate with other cells and exert their therapeutic effect mainly via the secretion of bioactive molecules, the so called secretome. Variations between tissue sources and patients exist and reflect the heterogeneity in biological activity of such cells both in vitro and in vivo.

This collection wants to bring together methods for MSC isolation and expansion, differentiation into cartilage and bone and techniques to identify MSC populations including cell sorting, RNA sequencing, secretory profile, and cell morphology.