Development of an innovative bioreactor system for human bone tissue engineering

In the last decades significant progress has been carried out leading to significant advances in the development of engineered tissues, thanks to taking into account three fundamental components: the cells to address tissue formation, a scaffold useful as substrate for tissue growth and development, growth factors and/or biomechanical stimuli to address the differentiation of cells within the scaffolds. In particular, mechanical stimuli are known to play a key role in bone tissue formation and mineralization. Mechanical actuators, namely bioreactor systems, can be used to enhance in vitro culture steps in the overall cell-based tissue engineering strategy of expanding in vitro a stem cell source to be cultured and differentiated on a three-dimensional scaffold, aiming at implanting this scaffold in vivo. The purpose of this study is thus to design a stand-alone perfusion/compression bioreactor system. The developed prototypal system allows to apply physical stimuli mimicking native loading regimens. The results obtained in human bone marrow stem cells (hBMSCs)  onboard of a 3D graphene/chitosan scaffold indicate that their exposure to a controlled dynamic environment is suitable to address bone tissue commitment.