Hematopoietic Stem Cell and Fibroblast Proliferation Following Platelet Electrostimulation

The increasing use of activated platelet rich plasma (PRP), or platelet gel, for wound healing has highlighted the disadvantages of using bovine thrombin (BT), an animal derived platelet activator, including high cost and antibody stimulation. This has motivated the exploration of direct (conductive coupling) and indirect (capacitive coupling) electrostimulation for ex vivo PRP activation to similar levels as BT in terms of growth factor release. PRP is a complex biological matrix comprising other blood cell types besides platelets. This paper assesses the impact of electrostimulation on other blood cells, specifically hematopoietic stem cells and fibroblasts. Capacitive coupling induces similar levels of cell viability and proliferation as BT 14 days following electrostimulation, while conductive coupling induces lower viability and proliferation. This indicates the potential tunability of electrostimulation to achieve equivalent efficacy as BT without the associated disadvantages and motivates future experiments to assess the implications on in vivo wound healing.