A Multi-Cue Bioreactor to Evaluate the Inflammatory and Regenerative Capacity of Biomaterials under Flow and Stretch

So far, it has been really difficult to identify the cause and effect relationships between hemodynamics and vascular tissue regeneration. And this has because it's challenging to control the individual mechanical loads. This bioreactor enables us to mechanistically investigate the individual and combined effects of sheer stress and cyclic stretch on the regenerative potential of a broad variety of tissue engineered vascular grafts.

Demonstrating this procedure will be Suzanne Koch, a PhD candidate in our group. And Dr.Tamar Wissing who is a postdoctoral researcher from our laboratory. To mount the electro spun scaffold onto the silicone tubing, thread a 4-0 prolene suture into one end of a piece of silicone tubing and out of the other.

Make a small knot on both sides of the tube leaving approximately 10 centimeters of wire on both knots and make a third knot on top of the two. After removing a suture needle, trim the edges of the silicone tubing into a triangular shape and make a final knot at the end of the two 10 centimeter wires. Dip the electro spun scaffold in 30%ethanol and place the scaffold over one end of free suture wire.

Next, gently stretch both sides of the silicone tubing and the 10 centimeter suture knot while second researcher uses tweezers with a smooth inner tip to gently slide the electro spun scaffold over the tubing. Slowly release the stretch on the silicone tubing while simultaneously smoothing the electro spun scaffold with the tweezers. And dip the scaffold and silicone tubing in ultra pure water two times.

Construct the bottom compartment and make sure that the O-ring is properly placed. Place an adaptor bushing in the upper part of the bottom compartment and place the pressure conduit with holes through the bottom compartment. Lace the silicone O-ring around the lower end of the pressure conduit to prevent leakage.

And screw the lower part of the bottom compartment to the upper part of the bottom compartment to secure the pressure conduit. Make sure that the lower engraved groove of the pressure conduit is approximately three to five millimeters above the edge of the adapter bushing of the bottom compartment. Pull the silicone tube with the electro spun scaffold over the pressure conduit and make a nod and the suture wire at the lower end of the electro spun scaffold, at the location of the engraved groove on the pressure conduit.

Make a second nod at the opposite side to tightly secure the silicone tubing with the electro spun graft. And placing a scissor clamp equipped with a rule at the upper end of the silicone tubing, pull the scissor clamp upwards in a consistent manner and gently pull on the electric spawn scaffold to remove any wrinkles. Use a suture wire to make two knots at both ends of the scaffold at the upper engraved groove of the pressure conduit.

When both knots have been made, release the scissor clamp and use a knife to remove any excess silicone tubing. Screw the nose cones on the screw thread of the pressure conduits for the samples that will be dynamically loaded. Dip the pressure conduit, tubing, and scaffold one time in 30%ethanol and two times in ultrapure water to pre-wet the setup.

Place the glass tube over the pressure conduit and push gently on the bottom compartment to secure the glass tube in place. Then place the flow straightener, a silicone O-ring, and adapter bushing in the top compartment. And secure the compartment over the open end of the glass tube.

Remove the male lure plug from the flow outlet, work in a sterile laminar flow cabinet. Open the white lure cap and place an ethanol soak tissue in front of the flow outlet. Deconstruct the flow culture chamber by taking off the glass tube with the top compartment.

Place a vacuum pasture pipe add onto the electro spun scaffold to remove as much medium as possible. And add fibrinogen solution at a one-to-one ratio with the thrombin supplemented cell suspension. Pipette the solution up and down one time and immediately drip the solution over the full length of the scaffold.

When all of the cells have been delivered, slowly move the scaffold from left to right and up and down to achieve an even distribution of the cells. When both sides of the scaffold have been seeded, carefully reconstruct the flow culture chamber by putting the glass tube and top compartment back. And place the flow culture chamber into the incubator to let the fiber solidify.

To couple the bioreactor to the pump system, place the flow culture chamber on one of the eight screw threads on the bioreactor base. And place a host clip on the medium tubing. Remove the white lure cap, covering the flow inlet of the top compartment of the flow culture chamber and remove the female lure coupler of the medium tubing.

Connect the medium tubing with one side of the flow inlet on the top compartment. And the other side with the flow outlet at the bottom compartment. Transfer the complete setup from the laminar flow cabinet to the incubator.

And connect a fluidic units and the bioreactor base to the air pressure tubing and electric cable. Start the software and initialize the pumps. Start the medium flow for the samples one by one.

Then change the strain pump parameters to the desired settings and start the strain. Monitor the stretch applied to the scaffold every other day. The monitoring of stretch and wall shear stress over longterm culture periods shows that these values can be maintained at relatively constant levels over a period of up to 20 days.

After three days of hemodynamic loading, immunofluorescent staining reveals a homogenous distribution of monocyte derived macrophages and myofibroblasts throughout the scaffold. After 20 days of co-culture, cyclic stretch results in the deposition of more numerous and thicker collagen type 1 fibers. While in the combined hemodynamic load group, the cyclic stretch effect is overruled by sheer stress resulting in a less pronounced collagen type 1 deposition.

After eight days of macrophage monoculture, fiber erosion and fiber cleavage are observed in all of the hemodynamic loading regimes with the most pronounced resorption observed in the static group, and the least pronounced resorption observed in the sheer stress group. Both cyclic stretch and a sheer stress impact the cytokine secretion profile of the co-culture setup. Interestingly, the combined effects of both loads show either dominance of one of the two loads or synergistic effects of both loads.

Co-culture experiments also show that the mechanical environment and resulting loading dependent inflammatory environments modulate the phenotype of the myofibroblasts. Furthermore, the gene expression patterns of contractile marker alpha smooth muscle actin correlate with protein synthesis. The most important thing when performing this protocol is that's what the application of stretch, it's essential that your setup is leak-free.