Mesenchymal stem cell‐coated sutures enhance collagen depositions in sutured tissues

ABSTRACTSutures are commonly used for surgical procedures and new sutures are beingdeveloped to improve wound healing. In the past decade, it has been extensivelyshown that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have a wound healing potential. Tobenefit the overall wound healing process, we aimed to analyze the usage of pre-treated sutures for improving the implantation of MSCs in the tissues. Our resultsfirstly showed that suture pretreatments with gelatin, poly-L-lysine, and NaOHimproved the adhesive strength of MSCs to sutures. These cells remained surround-ingthesuturedtissueandnosignificantphenotypicchangeswerefoundinthosecellscultured onto pretreated sutures. In vivo experiments showed that the implantation ofMSCs by suturing increases the collagen content in the sutured tissue. Moreover,proteomics analysis of secreted proteins showed that collagen alpha-1(I) chain wasthemostabundantcollagenfound.Toourknowledge,thisisthefirstreportthataimedto improve the implantation of MSCs in tissue by suture pretreatments. Moreover, invivo experiments suggest that MSC-coated sutures may enhance wound healing andtissue remodeling through the release of different collagen types being applicable forthose patients that tend to have difficulty healing.Absorbablesuturesarecommonlyusedinclinicalpracticeforwound closure to achieve healing without scarring or defor-mity. New sutures have been developed over the past years toimprove their physical properties and biological activity. Inthis sense, the usage of modified sutures coated with antimi-crobial agents has been extensively accepted as a valuabletoolforthereductionofwoundinfectionswithashownsafetyand tolerability.