Breidenbach Andrew P, Gilday Steven D, Lalley Andrea L, Dyment Nathaniel A, Gooch Cynthia, Shearn Jason T, Butler David L
Biomedical Engineering Program, College of Engineering and Applied Science, 601 Engineering Research Center, ML 0048, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0048, United States.
Biomedical Engineering Program, College of Engineering and Applied Science, 601 Engineering Research Center, ML 0048, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0048, United States; Medical Scientist Training Program, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United States.
J Biomech. 2014 Jun 27;47(9):1941-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2013.10.023. Epub 2013 Oct 22.
Improving tendon repair using Functional Tissue Engineering (FTE) principles has been the focus of our laboratory over the last decade. Although our primary goals were initially focused only on mechanical outcomes, we are now carefully assessing the biological properties of our tissue-engineered tendon repairs so as to link biological influences with mechanics. However, given the complexities of tendon development and healing, it remains challenging to determine which aspects of tendon biology are the most important to focus on in the context of tissue engineering. To address this problem, we have formalized a strategy to identify, prioritize, and evaluate potential biological success criteria for tendon repair. We have defined numerous biological properties of normal tendon relative to cellular phenotype, extracellular matrix and tissue ultra-structure that we would like to reproduce in our tissue-engineered repairs and prioritized these biological criteria by examining their relative importance during both normal development and natural tendon healing. Here, we propose three specific biological criteria which we believe are essential for normal tendon function: (1) scleraxis-expressing cells; (2) well-organized and axially-aligned collagen fibrils having bimodal diameter distribution; and (3) a specialized tendon-to-bone insertion site. Moving forward, these biological success criteria will be used in conjunction with our already established mechanical success criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of our tissue-engineered tendon repairs.
在过去十年中，运用功能组织工程（FTE）原理改善肌腱修复一直是我们实验室的重点。尽管我们最初的主要目标仅集中在力学结果上，但我们现在正在仔细评估组织工程化肌腱修复的生物学特性，以便将生物学影响与力学联系起来。然而，鉴于肌腱发育和愈合的复杂性，确定在组织工程背景下肌腱生物学的哪些方面是最需要关注的仍然具有挑战性。为了解决这个问题，我们制定了一项策略，以识别、排序和评估肌腱修复潜在的生物学成功标准。我们定义了正常肌腱相对于细胞表型、细胞外基质和组织超微结构的众多生物学特性，希望在我们的组织工程化修复中重现这些特性，并通过研究它们在正常发育和自然肌腱愈合过程中的相对重要性对这些生物学标准进行排序。在此，我们提出三个特定的生物学标准，我们认为这些标准对于正常肌腱功能至关重要：（1）表达硬骨素的细胞；（2）具有双峰直径分布的排列良好且轴向对齐的胶原纤维；（3）一个特殊的肌腱-骨附着位点。展望未来，这些生物学成功标准将与我们已经确立的力学成功标准一起用于评估我们的组织工程化肌腱修复的有效性。
