Hydrodynamic 3D Culture for Bone Tissue Engineering

Bone tissue engineering provided a promising approach for treatment of large bone defects resulting from maladies such as birth defects, trauma, or tumor resection. In vitro culture of a porous scaffold seeded with osteoprogenitor cells may enhance its bone regeneration potential. In this chapter, we describe the design of a novel perfusion bioreactor system with oscillatory flow for cultivating multiple 3D cellular constructs with clinical applicable size. It can perfuse culture media in a small volume repeatedly through out the scaffolds. The mixing effect of the oscillatory flow may enhance the uniform growth of cells in the scaffold in prolonged culture in vitro. The system was characterized. Mouse osteoblast-like cells, MC 3T3-E1, were dynamically seeded and cultured in large porous ceramic β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) scaffolds by the oscillatory perfusion system, and then the cell growth within the scaffolds was evaluated by fluorescent study. The oscillatory perfusion system could be a simple and effective bioreactor for bone tissue engineering.