Engineering of functional tendon.
Surgical tendon repair is limited by the availability of viable tissue for transplantation. Because of its relatively avascular nature, tendon is a prime candidate for engineered tissue replacement. To address this problem, cells isolated from rat Achilles tendon were grown to confluence in culture and allowed to self-assemble into a cylinder between two anchor points. The resulting scaffold-free tissue was composed of aligned, small-diameter collagen fibrils, a large number of cells, and an excess of noncollagenous extracellular matrix; all characteristics of embryonic tendon. The stress-strain response of the constructs also resembles the nonlinear behavior of immature tendons, and the ultimate tensile strength is approximately equal to that of embryonic chick tendon, roughly 2 MPa. These physical and mechanical properties indicate that these constructs are the first viable tendons engineered in vitro, without the aid of artificial scaffolding.
Calve
Sarah
S
Program in Macromolecular Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2125, USA.
Dennis
Robert G
RG
Kosnik
Paul E
PE
Baar
Keith
K
Grosh
Karl
K
Arruda
Ellen M
EM
D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004548:Elasticity; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344; D013710:Tendons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000254:growth & development*; D013718:Tensile Strength / Q000502:physiology; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*