| dc.description.abstract | Tissue engineers have been trying to grow tissue implants in vitro. Because cells grown in monolayer culture cannot form three-dimensional tissues, and the cells in culture may dedifferentiate, becoming different in phenotypes from native cells, researchers have designed three- dimensional porous scaffolds, on which cells can be seeded, adhere and proliferate into three-dimensional tissues.
Nutrient delivery to cells throughout the cell-seeded scaffolds grown in static culture must occurs by diffusion. As a result, cells on the scaffold periphery are typically viable while cells within the constructs may be less active or even necrotic. To overcome this disadvantage, tissue culture systems that use fluid flow to improve nutrient transports are designed to enhance the cell growth in vitro.
This thesis is to design a perfusion bioreactor for chondrocyte culture in vitro. Culture media are forced to flow by a roller pump through the culture chambers, within which cell-scaffold constructs are placed. Cells are grown with unidirectional and reversal flow respectively at three different perfusion rates (11 μm/s, 76 μm/s and 252 μm/s). Results show perfusion with reversal flow at the veloctiy 252μm/s has the best result for three days of culture. In nine days of culture, unidirectional medium flow at 252 μm/s is better than the other two culture perfusion rates. This study reveals that perfusion can enhance cellular proliferation and improve cartilage forming with carefully controlled perfusion rates. | en_US |