Rapid oriented fibril formation of fish scale collagen facilitates early osteoblastic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells

We studied the effect of fibril formation of fish scale collagen on the osteoblastic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). We found that hMSCs adhered easily to tilapia scale collagen, which remarkably accelerated the early stage of osteoblastic differentiation in hMSCs during in vitro cell culture. Osteoblastic markers such as ALP activity, osteopontin, and bone morphogenetic protein 2 were markedly upregulated when the hMSCs were cultured on a tilapia collagen surface, especially in the early osteoblastic differentiation stage. We hypothesized that this phenomenon occurs due to specific fibril formation of tilapia collagen. Thus, we examined the time course of collagen fibril formation using high‐speed atomic force microscopy. Moreover, to elucidate the effect of the orientation of fibril formation on the differentiation of hMSCs, we measured ALP activity of hMSCs cultured on two types of tilapia scale collagen membranes with different degrees of fibril formation. The ALP activity in hMSCs cultured on a fibrous collagen membrane was significantly higher than on a non‐fibrous collagen membrane even before adding osteoblastic differentiation medium. These results showed that the degree of the fibril formation of tilapia collagen was essential for the osteoblastic differentiation of hMSCs. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 103A: 2531–2539, 2015.