Prediction of cell growth rate over scaffold strands inside a perfusion bioreactor

Abstract

Mathematical and computational modeling of the dynamic process where tissue scaffolds are cultured in perfusion bioreactors is able to provide insight into the cell and tissue growth which can facilitate the design of tissue scaffolds and selection of optimal operating conditions. To date, a resolved-scale simulation of cell growth in the culture process, by taking account of the influences of the supply of nutrients and fluid shear stress on the cells, is not yet available in the literature. This paper presents such a simulation study specifically on cartilage tissue regeneration by numerically solving the momentum, scalar transport and cell growth equations, simultaneously, based on the lattice Boltzmann method. The simulation uses a simplified scaffold that consists of two circular strands placed in tandem inside a microchannel, with the object of identifying the effect of one strand on the other. The results indicate that the presence of the front strand can reduce the cell growth rate on the surface of the rear strand, depending on the distance between them. As such, the present study allows for investigation into the influence of the scaffold geometry on the cell growth rate within scaffolds, thus providing a means to improve the scaffold design and the culture process.

Modelling and simulation of the chondrocyte cell growth, glucose consumption and lactate production within a porous tissue scaffold inside a perfusion bioreactor

“…The details of the MRT LBM methods used in the present paper can be found in previous study [22] and in Sullivan et al [24]. The number of nodes used for the simulation was 115 × 46 × 46 in the x , y and z directions, respectively.…”

Fluid flow and mass transfer over circular strands using the lattice Boltzmann method

“…The results from both 2D and 3D simulations were observed to be in excellent agreement with the analytical predictions. This method has since been used for the simulation of packed bed reactors [19], 3D simulation of biofilm growth in porous media [20], development of a 3D biofilm growth model applicable to random porous media [21] and prediction of the cell growth rate over scaffold strand surface [22]. For the development of the 3D biofilm model, Pintelon et al [21] used the MRT LBM to simulate pore scale hydrodynamics, in which a single relaxation time (SRT) LBM was used to solve the advection-diffusion-reaction equation.…”

Numerical accuracy comparison of two boundary conditions commonly used to approximate shear stress distributions in tissue engineering scaffolds cultured under flow perfusion

“…Unfortunately, however, the complex internal structure of the porous scaffolds makes estimation of the required shear stresses via experimental or analytical techniques impractical. Hence, computational fluid dynamics models, based on either idealized pore geometries 6,8,[16][17][18][19][20][21] or actual scaffold images, 12,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] are commonly utilized.…”