Development of a Perfusion Reactor for Intervertebral Disk Regeneration

• Published in: Tissue engineering. Part C, Methods Vol. 28; no. 1; p. 12
• Main Authors: Upenieks, Alexander, Montgomery-Song, Aaryn, Santerre, John Paul, Kandel, Rita A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Humans; Intervertebral Disc; Intervertebral Disc Degeneration - therapy; Nucleus Pulposus; Perfusion; Regeneration; bioreactor; tissue engineering; intervertebral disk
• ISSN: 1937-3392
• DOI: 10.1089/ten.tec.2021.0216

A tissue-engineered biological disk replacement has been proposed as a promising approach for the treatment of degenerative disk disease. A perfusion bioreactor would be a logical consideration to facilitate this scale-up as such reactors have been shown to improve nutrient delivery and provide beneficial mechanical forces that support the cultivation of large three-dimensional constructs. It was hypothesized that perfusion culture of tissue-engineered intervertebral disk (IVD) tissues would be capable of generating outer annulus fibrosus (oAF) and nucleus pulposus (NP) tissues comparable with established spinner reactor or static cultures, respectively, without compromising cellular viability, nutrient delivery, and tissue formation. In this study, the perfusion grown oAF and NP tissues did not show a significant difference in extracellular matrix (ECM) quantity or cellular phenotype when compared with their control conditions. In addition, they maintained cellular viability at the center core of the tissues and received enhanced diffusion of medium throughout the tissue when compared with static conditions. This study lays the groundwork for future studies to grow an entire IVD tissue to a physiologically relevant size.