Modified hyaluronic acid for use in musculoskeletal tissue repair
Patent Number: 7091191
This patent is useful for making scaffolds onto which stem cells, progenitor cells, or other type of cells can be seeded, and the scaffold together with the seeded cells are implanted in vivo. Previous scaffold technologies using hyaluronic acid have the drawback of very rapid resorption in the body, not giving the cells enough time to integrate and function properly. This patent uses a novel means of extending usefulness of scaffolds. The patent has 1 independent claim which teaches how to make a hyaluronic acid composition which is a hydrophobic polymer. The claim is specifically restricted to musculoskelatal repair. The specification teaches that various growth factors may also be added to the scaffold such as "Growth factors, extracellular matrix proteins, and biologically relevant peptide fragments that can be used with the matrices of the current invention include, but are not limited to, antibiotics and antiviral agents; anticancer agents; anti-rejection agents; analgesics and analgesic combinations; anti-inflammatory agents such as acetoaminophen; cytostatic agents such as Rapamycin; hormones such as steroids; analgesics; growth factors, including bone morphogenic proteins (BMP-2, BMP-4, BMP-6, BMP-12, BMP-2); sonic hedgehog; growth differentiation factor (GDF5, GDF6 and GDF8); epidermal growth factor; fibroblast growth factor; platelet derived growth factor (PDGF); insulin like growth factor (IGF-I and IGF-II); transforming growth factors (TGF-.beta. I III); parathyroid hormone, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); genetically engineered cells that express desired proteins; and other naturally derived or genetically engineered proteins, polysaccharides, glycoproteins, or lipoproteins." Additionally, the patent teaches that various cells may be seeded to the scaffold such as "bone marrow cells, mesenchymal stem cells, stromal cells, stem cells, embryonic stem cells, chondrocytes, osteoblasts, precursor cells derived from adipose tissue, bone marrow derived progenitor cells, kidney cells, intestinal cells, islets, sertoli cells, peripheral blood progenitor cells, fibroblasts, keratinocytes, nucleus pulposus cells, anulus fibrosis cells, fibrochondrocytes, stem cells isolated from adult tissue, neuronal stem cells, glial cells, macrophages and genetically transformed cells".
View this patent on the USPTO website.
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paul said...
This patent covers a variety of different growth factors, but what about embedded DNA plasmids encoding such factors?
It would be interesting to see if one could stimulate endogenous, regulated, and physiological production of regenerative proteins through embedding their respective nucleic acid sequences in such matrices.