title: Correlation between porous texture and cell seeding efficiency of gas foaming and microfluidic foaming scaffolds.
abstract: In the design of scaffolds for tissue engineering applications, morphological parameters such as pore size, shape, and interconnectivity, as well as transport properties, should always be tailored in view of their clinical application. In this work, we demonstrate that a regular and ordered porous texture is fundamental to achieve an even cell distribution within the scaffold under perfusion seeding. To prove our hypothesis, two sets of alginate scaffolds were fabricated using two different technological approaches of the same method: gas-in-liquid foam templating. In the first one, foam was obtained by insufflating argon in a solution of alginate and a surfactant under stirring. In the second one, foam was generated inside a flow-focusing microfluidic device under highly controlled and reproducible conditions. As a result, in the former case the derived scaffold (GF) was characterized by polydispersed pores and interconnects, while in the latter (μFL), the porous structure was highly regular both with respect to the spatial arrangement of pores and interconnects and their monodispersity. Cell seeding within perfusion bioreactors of the two scaffolds revealed that cell population inside μFL scaffolds was quantitatively higher than in GF. Furthermore, seeding efficiency data for μFL samples were characterized by a lower standard deviation, indicating higher reproducibility among replicates. Finally, these results were validated by simulation of local flow velocity (CFD) inside the scaffolds proving that μFL was around one order of magnitude more permeable than GF.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy; Tissue Engineering Lab, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, 00128 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Costantini
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Colosi
authors.affiliation: Tissue Engineering Lab, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, 00128 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mozetic
authors.affiliation: Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, 02507 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Jakub
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jaroszewicz
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tosato
authors.affiliation: Tissue Engineering Lab, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, 00128 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rainer
authors.affiliation: Tissue Engineering Lab, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, 00128 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marcella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trombetta
authors.affiliation: Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, 02507 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Święszkowski
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Mariella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dentini
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy. Electronic address: andrea.barbetta@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barbetta
mesh_terms: D000464:Alginates / Q000737:chemistry; D019149:Bioreactors; D002460:Cell Line; D055119:Elastic Modulus; D005740:Gases / Q000737:chemistry*; D020723:Glucuronic Acid / Q000737:chemistry; D006603:Hexuronic Acids / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D016062:Porosity; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013501:Surface-Active Agents / Q000737:chemistry; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds / Q000737:chemistry*; D055114:X-Ray Microtomography
chemical_list: D000464:Alginates; D005740:Gases; D006603:Hexuronic Acids; D013501:Surface-Active Agents; D020723:Glucuronic Acid
keywords: Bioreactor; Cell seeding efficiency; Microfluidic foaming; Porous scaffolds