Biomechanics Research Centre (BMEC), Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering and Informatics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2018 Feb;17(1):5-18. doi: 10.1007/s10237-017-0941-3. Epub 2017 Aug 4.
Mechanical stimulation, in the form of fluid perfusion or mechanical strain, enhances osteogenic differentiation and overall bone tissue formation by mesenchymal stems cells cultured in biomaterial scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. In silico techniques can be used to predict the mechanical environment within biomaterial scaffolds, and also the relationship between bone tissue regeneration and mechanical stimulation, and thereby inform conditions for bone tissue engineering experiments. In this study, we investigated bone tissue regeneration in an idealised hydrogel scaffold using a mechano-regulation model capable of predicting tissue differentiation, and specifically compared five loading cases, based on known experimental bioreactor regimes. These models predicted that low levels of mechanical loading, i.e. compression (0.5% strain), pore pressure of 10 kPa and a combination of compression (0.5%) and pore pressure (10 kPa), could induce more osteogenic differentiation and lead to the formation of a higher bone tissue fraction. In contrast greater volumes of cartilage and fibrous tissue fractions were predicted under higher levels of mechanical loading (i.e. compression strain of 5.0% and pore pressure of 100 kPa). The findings in this study may provide important information regarding the appropriate mechanical stimulation for in vitro bone tissue engineering experiments.
机械刺激，以流体灌注或机械应变的形式，通过在生物材料支架中培养间充质干细胞来增强成骨分化和整体骨组织形成，用于组织工程应用。计算技术可用于预测生物材料支架内的力学环境，以及骨组织再生与机械刺激之间的关系，从而为骨组织工程实验提供条件。在这项研究中，我们使用能够预测组织分化的机械调节模型研究了理想的水凝胶支架中的骨组织再生，并具体比较了基于已知实验生物反应器方案的五种加载情况。这些模型预测，低水平的机械负载，即压缩（0.5%应变）、10 kPa 的孔隙压力以及压缩（0.5%）和孔隙压力（10 kPa）的组合，可诱导更多的成骨分化，并导致形成更高的骨组织分数。相比之下，在更高水平的机械负载（即 5.0%的压缩应变和 100 kPa 的孔隙压力）下，预测会形成更大体积的软骨和纤维组织分数。本研究的结果可能为体外骨组织工程实验的适当机械刺激提供重要信息。
