title: The effect of mechanical extension stimulation combined with epithelial cell sorting on outcomes of implanted tissue-engineered muscular urethras.
abstract: Urethral defects are common and frequent disorders and are difficult to treat. Simple natural or synthetic materials do not provide a satisfactory curative solution for long urethral defects, and urethroplasty with large areas of autologous tissues is limited and might interfere with wound healing. In this study, adipose-derived stem cells were used. These cells can be derived from a wide range of sources, have extensive expansion capability, and were combined with oral mucosal epithelial cells to solve the problem of finding seeding cell sources for producing the tissue-engineered urethras. We also used the synthetic biodegradable polymer poly-glycolic acid (PGA) as a scaffold material to overcome issues such as potential pathogen infections derived from natural materials (such as de-vascular stents or animal-derived collagen) and differing diameters. Furthermore, we used a bioreactor to construct a tissue-engineered epithelial-muscular lumen with a double-layer structure (the epithelial lining and the muscle layer). Through these steps, we used an epithelial-muscular lumen built in vitro to repair defects in a canine urethral defect model (1 cm). Canine urethral reconstruction was successfully achieved based on image analysis and histological techniques at different time points. This study provides a basis for the clinical application of tissue engineering of an epithelial-muscular lumen.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Shanghai 6th People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200233, PR China. Electronic address: jamesqfu@aliyun.com.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Chen-Liang
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Ren-Yan
authors.initials: RY
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yilin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000166:cytology; D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D004285:Dogs; D009130:Muscle, Smooth / Q000166:cytology*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D014521:Urethra / Q000166:cytology*
keywords: Adipose-derived stem cells; Bioreactor; Oral mucosal epithelial cell; Tissue engineering; Urethral defect