Short-term evaluation of electromagnetic field pretreatment of adipose-derived stem cells to improve bone healing.

An electromagnetic field is an effective stimulation tool because it promotes bone defect healing, albeit in an unknown way. Although electromagnetic fields are used for treatment after surgery, many patients prefer cell-based tissue regeneration procedures that do not require daily treatments. This study addressed the effects of an electromagnetic field on adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) to investigate the feasibility of pretreatment to accelerate bone regeneration. After identifying a uniform electromagnetic field inside a solenoid coil, we observed that a 45 Hz electromagnetic field induced osteogenic marker expression via bone morphogenetic protein, transforming growth factor β, and Wnt signalling pathways based on microarray analyses. This electromagnetic field increased osteogenic gene expression, alkaline phosphate activity and nodule formation in vitro within 2 weeks, indicating that this pretreatment may provide osteogenic potential to ASCs on three-dimensional (3D) ceramic scaffolds. This pretreatment effect of an electromagnetic field resulted in significantly better bone regeneration in a mouse calvarial defect model over 4 weeks compared to that in the untreated group. This short-term evaluation showed that the electromagnetic field pretreatment may be a future therapeutic option for bone defect treatment.