• Papatpong Sirikururat D.D.S.
• Suphot Tamsailom D.D.S., M.Sc., Diplomate, Thai Board of Periodontology
• Pi-Ling Chang Ph.D.
• Somporn Swasdison D.D.S., Ph.D.

Objectives To study the response including cell proliferation and cell attachment of human bone
marrow stromal cells to collagen and osteopontin in vitro.

Materials and methods The study was performed by co-culturing human bone marrow stromal cells
with bovine dermal collagen and recombinant rat osteopontin. MTT assay was utilized to determine the
cell proliferation and cytotoxicity resulted from the cells being exposed to four conditioned surfaces,
uncoated, collagen-coated, osteopontin-coated and mixed collagen/osteopontin-coated. Cell attachment
to these four conditioned surfaces was also investigated under the scanning electron microscope.

Results The cells exposed to the collagen-coated and the mixed collagen/osteopontin-coated surfaces
demonstrated the increasing of cell proliferation to 106.52 ± 4.08% and 114.78 ± 6.82% respectively,
whereas the cells exposed to the osteopontin-coated surface revealed the decrease in cell number to
53.48 ± 12.20% when compared to the control group. Scanning electron microscopy showed good cell
attachment in all studied groups.

Conclusion Both collagen containing solutions enhanced the human bone marrow stromal cell
proliferation and attachment. The enhancement is increased with the addition of osteopontin. These
results suggest that collagen and osteopontin are advantageous to the bone marrow stromal cells.
Therefore, it might be worth introducing them to the field of bone regeneration.

(CU Dent J. 2008;31:19-32)