title: Proliferating cells versus differentiated cells in tissue engineering.
abstract: The efficiency of cell or tissue cultures is usually judged by how quickly confluence is reached within a Petri dish or on a scaffold. Growth factors and fetal bovine serum are employed to drive cultured cells from one mitosis to the next as quickly as possible. The tissue specific interphase is extremely short under these conditions, so that the degree of differentiation desired in tissue engineering cannot be achieved. To reach the goal of functional differentiation in vitro mitosis and interphase must be separated experimentally and tailored to the specific requirements of the cell-type used. This could be achieved by a three step concept for tissue-engineering in vitro as we present here. The expansion phase is followed by a phase in which tissue differentiation is initiated. The final phase serves to express and maintain histotypical differentiation of the generated tissue.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Raimund
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Strehl
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schumacher
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: de Vries
authors.forename: Will W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Minuth
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D002455:Cell Division / Q000502:physiology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006801:Humans; D023822:Tissue Engineering