A multi-well bioreactor for cartilage tissue engineering experiments

Yann D Ladner; Hermann Kasper; Angela R Armiento; Martin J Stoddart

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107092

A multi-well bioreactor for cartilage tissue engineering experiments

iScience. 2023 Jun 9;26(7):107092. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107092. eCollection 2023 Jul 21.

Authors

Yann D Ladner^{1

2}, Hermann Kasper¹, Angela R Armiento^{1

3}, Martin J Stoddart^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ AO Research Institute Davos, Clavadelerstrasse 8, 7270 Davos Platz, Switzerland.
² Institute for Biomechanics, ETH Zurich, Lengghalde 5, CH-8008 Zurich, Switzerland.
³ UCB Pharma, Slough, UK.
⁴ Department of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, Medical Center-Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, 79106 Freiburg, Germany.

Abstract

Cartilage tissue engineering necessitates the right mechanical cues to regenerate impaired tissue. For this reason, bioreactors can be employed to induce joint-relevant mechanical loading, such as compression and shear. However, current articulating joint bioreactor designs are lacking in terms of sample size and usability. In this paper, we describe a new, simple-to-build and operate, multi-well kinematic load bioreactor and investigate its effect on the chondrogenic differentiation of human bone marrow-derived stem cells (MSCs). We seeded MSCs into a fibrin-polyurethane scaffold and subsequently exposed the samples to a combination of compression and shear for 25 days. The mechanical loading activates transforming growth factor beta 1, upregulates chondrogenic genes, and increases sulfated glycosaminoglycan retention within the scaffolds. Such a higher-throughput bioreactor could be operated in most cell culture laboratories, dramatically accelerating and improving the testing of cells, new biomaterials, and tissue-engineered constructs.

Keywords: Bioengineering; Biotechnology; Cell biology; Tissue Engineering.