Tissue engineering seeks to repair or regenerate tissues through combinations of implanted cells, biomaterial scaffolds and biologically active molecules. The rapid restoration of tissue biomechanical function remains an important challenge, emphasizing the need to replicate structural and mechanical properties using novel scaffold designs. Here we present a microscale 3D weaving technique to generate anisotropic 3D woven structures as the basis for novel composite scaffolds that are consolidated with a chondrocyte-hydrogel mixture into cartilage tissue constructs. Composite scaffolds show mechanical properties of the same order of magnitude as values for native articular cartilage, as measured by compressive, tensile and shear testing. Moreover, our findings showed that porous composite scaffolds could be engineered with initial properties that reproduce the anisotropy, viscoelasticity and tension-compression nonlinearity of native articular cartilage. Such scaffolds uniquely combine the potential for load-bearing immediately after implantation in vivo with biological support for cell-based tissue regeneration without requiring cultivation in vitro.
The development of synthetic biomaterials that possess mechanical properties that mimic those of native tissues remains an important challenge to the field of materials. In particular, articular cartilage is a complex nonlinear, viscoelastic, and anisotropic material that exhibits a very low coefficient of friction, allowing it to withstand millions of cycles of joint loading over decades of wear. Here we show that a three-dimensionally woven fiber scaffold that is infiltrated with an interpenetrating network hydrogel can provide a functional biomaterial that provides the load-bearing and tribological properties of native cartilage. An interpenetrating dual-network “tough-gel” consisting of alginate and polyacrylamide was infused into a porous three-dimensionally woven poly(ε-caprolactone) fiber scaffold, providing a versatile fiber-reinforced composite structure as a potential acellular or cell-based replacement for cartilage repair.
Tissue engineering seeks to restore the function of diseased or damaged tissues through the use of cells and biomaterial scaffolds. It is now apparent that the next generation of functional tissue replacements will require advanced material strategies to achieve many of the important requirements for long-term success. Here we provide representative examples of engineered skeletal and myocardial tissue constructs in which scaffolds were explicitly designed to match native tissue mechanical properties as well as to promote cell alignment. We discuss recent progress in microfluidic devices that can potentially serve as tissue engineering scaffolds, since mass transport via microvascular-like structures will be essential in the development of tissue engineered constructs on the length scale of native tissues. Given the rapid evolution of the field of tissue engineering, it is important to consider the use of advanced materials in light of the emerging role of genetics, growth factors, bioreactors, and other technologies.
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