A Chinese research team has developed a multicellular scaffold based on inorganic bioceramics for treating tendon-to-bone injuries.
A tendon injury (tendinopathy)? Tendons are the tough fibres that connect muscle to bone. A tendon injury (tendinopathy) occurs when you have irritated or damaged these fibres. The areas most often affected are the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle.
Restriction of motor activity due to loss of natural structure is a major cause of decreased life quality in patients suffering from tendon-to-bone injuries.
To solve this problem, the research team, led by the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics (SIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, combined manganese silicate (MS) nanoparticles with tendon/bone-related cells to construct an immunomodulatory multicellular scaffold to achieve integrated tendon-to-bone regeneration.
The scaffold not only demonstrated diverse biological activities in vitro, but also achieved immune regulation, multi-tissue integration regeneration and motor function recovery in a variety of animal models of rotator cuff injury.
The study provides a new concept for achieving immunomodulation and integrated regeneration of tendon-bone and other tissue interfaces, said Wu Chengtie with the SIC, who led the research.
The study was recently published in the journal Science Advances.
