ABSTRACT
The annual regeneration of deer antlers is a unique developmental event in mammals, which as a rule possess only a very limited capacity to regenerate lost appendages. Studying antler regeneration can therefore provide a deeper inside into the mechanisms that prevent limb regeneration in humans and other mammals. With regard to tissue engineering and potential medical treatments, such studies may possibly even show ways how to overcome these limitations. First of all, we investigated the regenerative capacity of long-term cultivated cell populations derived from deer antler tissue. The results showed that primary antler cell cultures can be kept alive for more than 27 months without visible signs of apoptosis. Without artifi cial scaffolds, long-term cultures begin to form complex structures which give the impression that antlerogenic cells per se have the ability to build up a “trabecular” structure resembling a spongiosa. Traditionally, antler regeneration has been characterized as a process
University Medical Center Goettingen (UMG), Research Group Experimental Osteology, Department of Maxillofacial Surgery, Robert-Koch-Str. 40, D-37075 Goettingen, Germany. aEmail: hrolf@uni-goettingen.de bEmail: wiese@med.uni-goettingen.de *Corresponding authors
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