title: Bio-inspired design of a magnetically active trilayered scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering.
abstract: An important topic in cartilage tissue engineering is the development of biomimetic scaffolds which mimic the depth-dependent material properties of the native tissue. We describe an advanced trilayered nanocomposite hydrogel (ferrogel) with a gradient in compressive modulus from the top to the bottom layers (p < 0.05) of the construct. Further, the scaffold was able to respond to remote external stimulation, exhibiting an elastic, depth-dependent strain gradient. When bovine chondrocytes were seeded into the ferrogels and cultured for up to 14 days, there was good cell viability and a biochemical gradient was measured with sulphated glycosaminoglycan increasing with depth from the surface. This novel construct provides tremendous scope for tailoring location-specific cartilage replacement tissue; by varying the density of magnetic nanoparticles, concentration of base hydrogel and number of cells, physiologically relevant depth-dependent gradients may be attained. © 2015 The Authors Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, UK.
authors.forename: Mariea A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Brady
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, UK.
authors.forename: Lucien
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Talvard
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, UK.
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vella
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, UK.|Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: C Ross
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Ethier
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000379:methods*; D002356:Cartilage / Q000502:physiology*; D002417:Cattle; D019902:Chondrocytes / Q000166:cytology; D008280:Magnetics; D058185:Magnetite Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D058185:Magnetite Nanoparticles
keywords: biomimetic; cartilage; depth-dependent gradient; magnetic nanoparticles; tissue engineering; trilayered scaffold