Design and Fabrication of Anatomical Bioreactor Systems Containing Alginate Scaffolds for Cartilage Tissue Engineering

The aim of the present study was to develop a tissue-engineering approach through alginate gel molding to mimic cartilage tissue in a three-dimensional culture system. the perfusion biomimetic bioreactor was designed to mimic natural joint. the shear stresses exerting on the bioreactor chamber were calculated by computational fluid dynamic (cfd). several alginate/bovine chondrocyte constructs were prepared, and were cultured in the bioreactor. histochemical and immunohistochemical staining methods for the presence of glycosaminoglycan(gag), overall matrix production and type ii collagen pro-tein were performed, respectively. the dynamic mechanical device applied a linear mechanical displacement of 2 mm to 10 mm. the cfd modeling in-dicated peak velocity and maximum wall shear stress were 1.706×10-3 m/s and 0.02407 dyne/cm2, respectively. histochemical and immunohistochemical an-alysis revealed evidence of cartilage-like tissue with lacunas similar to those of natural cartilage and the production of sulfated gag of matrix by the chon-drons, metachromatic territorial matrix-surrounded cells and accumulation of type ii collagen around the cells. the present study indicated that when chon-drocytes were seeded in alginate hydrogel and cultured in biomimetic cell culture system, cells survived well and secreted newly synthesized matrix led to improvement of chondrogenesis