Porous tissue grafts sandwiched with multilayered mesenchymal stromal cell sheets induce tissue regeneration for cardiac repair.
OBJECTIVE
To provide the basis for uniform cardiac tissue regeneration, a spatially uniform distribution of adhered cells within a scaffold is a prerequisite. To achieve this goal, a bioengineered tissue graft consisting of a porous tissue scaffold sandwiched with multilayered sheets of mesenchymal stromal cells was developed.


RESULTS
This tissue graft (sandwiched patch) was used to replace the infarcted wall in a syngeneic Lewis rat model with an experimentally chronic myocardial infarction (MI). There were four treatment groups (n >/= 10): sham, MI, empty patch, and sandwiched patch. After a 7 day culture of the sandwiched patch, a tissue graft with relatively uniform cell concentrations was obtained. The cells were viable and tightly adhered to the tissue scaffold, as the endogenous extracellular matrix inherent with multilayered cell sheets can act as an adhesive agent for cell attachment and retention. At retrieval, the area of the empty patch was relatively enlarged, suggesting reduced structural support, while that of the sandwiched patch remained about the same (P = 0.56). In the immunofluorescent staining, host cells together with neo-microvessels were clearly observed in the empty patch; however, there were still a large number of unfilled pores within the patch. In the sandwiched patch, besides host cells, originally seeded cells were populated within the entire patch. No apparent evidence of apoptotic cell death was found in both studied patches. Thus, the sandwiched-patch-treated hearts demonstrated a better heart function to the empty-patch-treated hearts (P < 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
The results demonstrated that this novel bioengineered tissue graft can serve as a useful cardiac patch to restore the dilated left ventricle and stabilize heart functions after MI.
Department of Chemical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30013, Republic of China.
Chun-Hung
CH
Chen
Hao-Ji
HJ
Wei
Wei-Wen
WW
Lin
Iwen
I
Chiu
Shiaw-Min
SM
Hwang
Chung-Chi
CC
Wang
Wen-Yu
WY
Lee
Yen
Y
Chang
Hsing-Wen
HW
Sung
D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D048091:Guided Tissue Regeneration; D008297:Male; D045164:Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D010496:Pericardium / Q000637:transplantation; D051381:Rats; D011917:Rats, Inbred Lew; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left