Short-term human chondrocyte culturing on oriented collagen coated gelatine scaffolds for cartilage replacement

Abstract

The biological, biochemical, mechanical, and structural properties of artificial scaffolds for tissue engineering are known to be of great importance. Therefore, in this study a hydrogel derived scaffold with biomechanical and structural properties similar to native articular cartilage was synthesized. The gelatine-based hydrogel was processed by freeze-structuring, structuring by electrochemical water-decomposition, freeze-drying and chemical fixation resulting in a defined scaffold-structure. By electron microscopy a perpendicular pore-channel structure was verified with channel diameters between 30 μm and 70 μm. Mechanical testing showed mechanical properties similar to native cartilage. Human chondrocytes from biopsy samples were cultivated on these hydrogel scaffolds for three days. Two different cell densities (1.2×10⁶ cells/cm³ and 12.0×10⁶ cells/cm³) were used for cultivation. Histology of the cell seeded artificial scaffolds demonstrated vital cells that are widely distributed within the scaffold and mimic a columnar arrangement.