Monitoring sinew contraction during formation of tissue-engineered fibrin-based ligament constructs.

Jennifer Paxton, Uchena Wudebwe, A Wang, D Woods, Liam Grover

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
370 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The ability to study the gross morphological changes occurring during tissue formation is vital to producing tissue-engineered structures of clinically relevant dimensions in vitro. Here, we have used non-destructive methods of digital imaging and optical coherence tomography to monitor the early-stage formation and subsequent maturation of fibrin-based tissue-engineered ligament constructs. In addition, the effect of supplementation with essential promoters of collagen synthesis, ascorbic acid (AA) and proline (P), have been assessed. Contraction of the cell-seeded fibrin gel occurs unevenly within the first 5 days of culture around two fixed anchor points before forming a longitudinal ligament-like construct. AA+P supplementation accelerates gel contraction in the maturation phase of development, producing ligament-like constructs with a higher collagen content and distinct morphology to that of un-supplemented constructs. These studies highlight the importance of being able to control the methods of tissue formation and maturation in vitro to enable the production of tissue-engineered constructs with suitable replacement tissue characteristics for repair of clinical soft tissue injuries.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1596-1607
JournalTissue Engineering Part A
Volume18
Issue number15-16
Early online date21 May 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Aug 2012

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