A simple in vitro biomimetic perfusion system for mechanotransduction study

Abstract

In mechanotransduction studies, flow-induced shear stress (FSS) is often applied to twodimensional (2D) cultured cells with a parallel-plate flow chamber (PPFC) due to its simple FSS estimation. However, cells behave differently under FSS inside a 3D scaffold (e.g. 10 mPa FSS was shown to induce osteogenesis of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) in 3D but over 900 mPa was needed for 2D culture). Here, a simple in vitro biomimetic perfusion system using borosilicate glass capillary tubes has been developed to study the cellular behaviour under low-level FSS that mimics 3D culture. It has been shown that, compared to cells in the PPFC, hMSC in the capillary tubes had upregulated Runx-2 expression and osteogenic cytoskeleton actin network under 10 mPa FSS for 24 h. Also, an image analysis method based on Haralick texture measurement has been used to identify osteogenic actin network. The biomimetic perfusion system can be a valuable tool to study mechanotransduction in 3D for more clinical relevant tissue-engineering applications.

Mechanical Stimulation on Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Surrounding Microenvironments in Bone Regeneration: Regulations and Applications

“…Sanat's research showed that MSCs exhibited a high cell proliferation rate when stimulated by intermittent flow at 1.09 mPa, while 10 mPa upregulated osteogenic gene expression (Dash et al, 2020). Xue and Cartmell, (2020) suggested the osteogenic effect of shear stress on MSCs in three-dimensional culture was different from that in the plate. Lower fluid shear stress (1-10 mPa) stimulated MSCs in the scaffold used to simulate a three-dimensional environment to promote the osteogenic differentiation, whereas 100-4,000 mPa was required when the MSCs were cultured in a plate (Xue and Cartmell, 2020).…”