A piezoelectric actuator-driven loading device for mechanical condition during bone tissue engineering

Abstract

Bone cells live in an environment heavily influenced by mechanical forces. The researches of bone cell responses in hard scaffolds under differently mechanical conditions will be greatly beneficial to elucidating the mechanisms of bone mechanotransduction as well as applications of mechanical condition in bone tissue engineering. However, the appropriate device for the experiments is prerequisite. A loading device suitable to hard scaffold for study on mechanical responses of bone cells was made by usage of a kind of long-travel, high-load piezoelectric actuator. The device, which is so small enough to work in a standard incubator, can cause hard scaffolds with directly uniaxial compressive strains with more magnitudes, frequency components, and waveforms, including bone physiologically mechanical state, precisely controlled by a computer. The device achieves precise mechanical conditions by testing verification. The device may produce a model that will be suitable for investigating the influences of mechanical responses on bone cells in 3D hard scaffolds in vitro matching that in cancellous bone in vivo and may be applied during bone tissue engineering culture.