Continuous cultivation of human hamstring tenocytes on microcarriers in a spinner flask bioreactor system.

Tendon healing is a time consuming process leading to the formation of a functionally altered reparative tissue. Tissue engineering-based tendon reconstruction is attracting more and more interest. The aim of this study was to establish tenocyte expansion on microcarriers in continuous bioreactor cultures and to study tenocyte behavior during this new approach.

Three-dimensional visualization of in vitro cultivated chondrocytes inside porous gelatine scaffolds: A tomographic approach.

Synchrotron radiation-based microcomputed tomography (SR-microCT) has become a valuable tool in the structural characterization of different types of materials, achieving volumetric details with micrometre resolution. Biomedical research dealing with porous polymeric biomaterials is one of the research fields which can benefit greatly from the use of SR-microCT. This study demonstrates that current experimental set-ups at synchrotron beamlines achieve a sufficiently high resolution in order to visualize the positions of individual cartilage cells cultivated on porous gelatine scaffolds made by a freeze-structuring technique.

Effect of different ascorbate supplementations on in vitro cartilage formation in porcine high-density pellet cultures.

Articular cartilage has only very limited potential for self-repair and regeneration. For this reason, various tissue engineering approaches have been developed to generate cartilage tissue in vitro. Usually, most strategies require ascorbate supplementation to promote matrix formation by isolated chondrocytes.

Development of a high-throughput screening assay based on the 3-dimensional pannus model for rheumatoid arthritis.

The 3-dimensional (3-D) pannus model for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is based on the interactive co-culture of cartilage and synovial fibroblasts (SFs). Besides the investigation of the pathogenesis of RA, it can be used to analyze the active profiles of antirheumatic pharmaceuticals and other bioactive substances under in vitro conditions. For a potential application in the industrial drug-screening process as a transitional step between 2-dimensional (2-D) cell-based assays and in vivo animal studies, the pannus model was developed into an in vitro high-throughput screening (HTS) assay.

A microcarrier-based cultivation system for expansion of primary mesenchymal stem cells.

Microcarrier cultures have been shown to allow extensive cell expansion of tissue engineering relevant cells, such as chondrocytes, while maintaining their phenotype. Our aim was to investigate the in vitro three-dimensional expansion of porcine bone-marrow-derived primary mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) using commercially available Cytodex type 1, type 2, and type 3 microcarriers. In comparison, the Cytodex type 1 microcarriers showed the best results for adherence with over 80% adherent cells after 3 h of incubation, analyzed by the Poisson distribution.