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RESEARCH ARTICLE

184 Effect of selenium on the differentiation of porcine adipose-derived stem cells into osteoblasts

L. Siegel A , T. Bane A , J. Bertels A , K. Ratz A , M. Rubessa A and M. Wheeler A B
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A Department of Animal Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA;

B Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA

Reproduction, Fertility and Development 31(1) 216-217 https://doi.org/10.1071/RDv31n1Ab184
Published online: 3 December 2018

Abstract

Bone damage is a common occurrence and although traditional bone healing methods work well, they are not always able to fix all issues pertaining to the injury. However, recent research on stem cell therapies using adipose-derived stem cells (ASC) has shown that ASC that differentiate into osteoblasts can be used as a potentially better solution for bone injuries. Selenium is a nutritional trace element that has been found to be essential in the production of selenoproteins and bone growth. Selenium plays an integral role in osteoblast cell differentiation and proliferation. The aim of this experiment was to test whether adding selenium to osteogenic influences the differentiation potential of ASC into osteoblasts. Porcine ASC were isolated as described (Monaco et al. 2009, Open Tissue Eng. Regen. Med. J. 2, 20-33). Seven different treatments were given to the cells: a negative control of DMEM, a positive control of osteogenic medium, and 5 concentrations of selenium in the osteogenic medium (10, 5, 1, 0.5, and 0.1 µM). Medium was changed twice a week for 4 weeks, at the end of which the cells were stained with Alizarin Red S stain. The number of osteoblastic nodules in each well were counted and divided into the categories of “forming” and “formed.” A generalized linear model (GLM) procedure (SPSS Inc./IBM Corp., Chicago, IL, USA) was used to analyse the data. The least statistical difference (l.s.d.) post hoc test was used to perform statistical multiple comparison with an α-level of 0.05. The results showed (Table 1) that medium containing selenium concentrations of 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 µM were able to develop more nodules than the osteogenic medium. There was no statistical difference in the total amount of forming and formed nodules in those 4 groups; however, there was a statistical tendency for a difference (P = 0.06) between the medium with 1 µM selenium and the osteogenic medium. Medium containing 10 or 5 µM selenium had lower nodule counts (both forming and formed) than osteogenic medium. There was no statistical difference between 10 µM and DMEM. These results suggest that low concentrations of selenium have a positive effect on nodule formation, whereas higher concentrations are detrimental.


Table 1.  The average number (standard deviations in parentheses) of formed, forming, and total osteoblastic nodules in each of the different treatments
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