Enhanced recellularization of rat acellular lungs using shaking in a custom-designed bioreactor

IntroductionLung tissue engineering based on acellular scaffolds has emerged as a promising solution for end-stage patients to circumvent rejection of transplanted organs and to reduce the waiting time for receiving donor organs. Providing sufficient cell density within the acellular scaffolds is one of the remained challenges in this field, which is a prerequisite for having a functional lung.ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to investigate the enhancement of recellularization within the acellular scaffolds by using shaking asa mechanical stimulus.MethodsAt first, rat acellular lung scaffolds were seeded with human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and then were mounted into a custom-designed perfusion bioreactor providing shaking. After 18 hours static culture period, shaking with the rate of 25 rpm was applied,and the culture process was continued up to a week while cell viability was being assessed by a real-time monitoring system. Also, a non-shaking culture was performed parallelly as a control.ResultsComparing the results of real-time monitoring between shaking and non-shaking cases, it was found that cell density was enhanced to 70% for the shaking case, and also, the cells survived for 20 hours more than the non-shaking case. In addition, H&E staining of the recellularized scaffolds proved that more cells were present in the shaking case.ConclusionThese results demonstrated that shaking as an operating parameter improved the cell density within the acellular scaffolds. However, more investigations are required to determine the optimized shaking rate for each cell type considering their tolerance against mechanical stress

کلیدواژه ها:

Bioreactor ، Acellular lungs ، Shaking ، Tissue engineering ، Regenerative medicine