A Novel Culture Chamber Design and Cell Biomaterial Sheet Engineering for Reconstruction of Cartilage Tissue

Abstract

Background: In recent years tissue engineering developed to replace or repair damaged tissues using cell and biomaterial. One of the most important fields of tissue engineering is simulation of in vivo micro environment of body tissues. This study aimed to develop culture chamber and cell biomaterial sheet engineering for the reconstruction of cartilage tissue.

Methods: Stainless steel culture chamber was designed with mechanical factor affecting cartilage. Shear exerted on the wall of the chamber was predicted with computational fluid dynamic modeling with Fluent. The meshes were created with Gambit software.After isolation of chondrocytes from cartilage, cells mixed with natural biomaterial and hydrogel tissue construct cultured in chamber. Sections of resulted cell-biomaterial construct were examined with histological methods.

Results: The designed chamber mimicked synovial joint with perfusion flow. Maximum wall shear was predicted with fluent was 2.407× 10-3 Pa. Chondrocyte-scaffold was created as a thin sheet. Histological examination of chondrocyte biomaterial revealed morphology of native cartilage tissue with round cluster chondrocyte profile. Isogenic group of constract proliferated and expanded.

Conclusions: According to simulation of in vivo environment of natural cartilage joint and simplification of tissue constructs production from chondrocyte and hydrogel scaffold, the novel strategy described here has great advantages to the improvement of cartilage tissue engineering.