Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251, USA.
J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2009 Oct;3(7):521-30. doi: 10.1002/term.191.
The meniscus is a fibrocartilaginous tissue that is critically important to the loading patterns within the knee joint. If the meniscus structure is compromised, there is little chance of healing, due to limited vascularity in the inner portions of the tissue. Several tissue-engineering techniques to mimic the complex geometry of the meniscus have been employed. Of these, a self-assembly, scaffoldless approach employing agarose moulds avoids drawbacks associated with scaffold use, while still allowing the formation of robust tissue. In this experiment two factors were examined, agarose percentage and mould surface roughness, in an effort to consistently obtain constructs with adequate geometric properties. Co-cultures of ACs and MCs (50:50 ratio) were cultured in smooth or rough moulds composed of 1% or 2% agarose for 4 weeks. Morphological results showed that constructs formed in 1% agarose moulds, particularly smooth moulds, were able to maintain their shape over the 4 week culture period. Significant increases were observed for the collagen II:collagen I ratio, total collagen, GAG and tensile and compressive properties in smooth wells. Cell number per construct was higher in the rough wells. Overall, it was observed that the topology of an agarose surface may be able to affect the phenotypic properties of cells that are on that surface, with smooth surfaces supporting a more chondrocytic phenotype. In addition, wells made from 1% agarose were able to prevent construct buckling potentially, due to their higher compliance.
半月板是一种纤维软骨组织，对于膝关节内的负荷模式至关重要。如果半月板结构受损，由于组织内部的血管有限，几乎没有愈合的机会。已经采用了几种组织工程技术来模拟半月板的复杂几何形状。在这些技术中，采用琼脂糖模具的自组装、无支架方法避免了与支架使用相关的缺点，同时仍允许形成坚固的组织。在这项实验中，研究了两个因素，琼脂糖百分比和模具表面粗糙度，以努力始终如一地获得具有足够几何特性的构建体。AC 和 MC 的共培养物（50:50 比例）在由 1%或 2%琼脂糖组成的光滑或粗糙模具中培养 4 周。形态学结果表明，在 1%琼脂糖模具中形成的构建体，特别是在光滑模具中，能够在 4 周的培养期间保持其形状。在光滑井中观察到胶原 II:胶原 I 比、总胶原、GAG 和拉伸及压缩性能显著增加。在粗糙井中每个构建体的细胞数量更高。总的来说，观察到琼脂糖表面的拓扑结构可能能够影响表面上的细胞的表型特性，光滑表面支持更软骨样表型。此外，由于其较高的顺应性，1%琼脂糖制成的井能够防止构建体弯曲。
