Fibronectin modified alginate coating enhances cell targeting and homing to bone marrow in BALB/c mice

Abstract

Stem cell homing to bone marrow (BM) suffers from premature differentiation of transfused cells within the blood stream, thereby reducing the efficiency of stem cell transplantation (SCT). This work is attempted to enhance the homing of cells in BM. Fibronectin modified alginate (A-F) was prepared and used to coat the cells. Biodistribution and survival advantage provided by A-F coating was evaluated in BALB/c mice. The A-F conjugate showed characteristic FT-IR peaks of alginate at 3308 cm⁻¹ and 1634 cm⁻¹, and Fibronectin peak at 675 cm⁻¹. The A-F coating prevented antibodies from binding to their respective cell surface receptors. The A-F coat abolished haemagglutination. Significant distribution of coated cells was observed in BM after 24 h. This provided protection to 7 Gy irradiated mice. The A-F coating showed no histological toxicity in vivo. The coating formulation is likely to be useful for shielding clinically relevant cell types to improve targeting for organ regeneration.

Keywords:

• Stem cell transplantation
• cell coating
• bioluminescence imaging
• radiation
• survival
• regeneration

Acknowledgements

Authors thank Director, INMAS, for his continuous support. We acknowledge the help of Dr. Anant Narayan Bhatt in acquisition of bioluminescence images. We also thank Prof. Akhilesh Verma for FT-IR sample acquisition. Authors acknowledge help in SEM and confocal microscopy from Advanced Instrumental Research Facility (AIRF), Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India.

Disclosure statement

This work has been patented at Indian Patent Office grant no. 337135 dated: 20–05-2020 (for 20 years).

Additional information

Funding

This work is funded by DRDO project grant no. 1.6 of ST-P1-2008/INM/311.