[Effects on proliferation ability of vascular smooth muscle cells by static and/or dynamic cell culture: utility of pre-seeding technique for dynamic cell culture].

Objectives: Conventional biomaterials are not viable, do not grow, and do not provide contractile effects in cardiac tissue. Foreign synthetic material may become thrombogenic or infected. The most recent cardiac constructs consist of biodegradable material which has the potential to solve these problems. However, dynamic three-dimensional cell culture is necessary because conventional culture is limited to construct tough biografts.

Methods: Vascular smooth muscle cells derived from rat aorta were seeded to poly-L-lactide-epsilon-capro-lactone copolymer in three groups; static culture group (static cell seeding + static cell culture), dynamic culture group (dynamic cell seeding + dynamic cell culture), and pre-seeding group [static cell seeding and culture for 1 week (pre-seeding) + dynamic cell culture]. The dynamic cell culture system used an original spinner flask. The pre-seeding technique used static cell seeding and culture before dynamic culture. The three groups were evaluated by cell proliferation and histologic studies.

Results: Vascular smooth muscle cells could be proliferated in/on the biodegradable materials. The pre-seeding group cells grew much more efficiently than the other groups. Very few cells were found in the biodegradable materials with the dynamic groups. However, there were many cells in the materials with the static culture group and pre-seeding group, especially the pre-seeding group.

Conclusions: Dynamic culture is useful for constructing tough biografts by the pre-seeding technique.