A Perfusion Co-Culture Bioreactor for Osteochondral Tissue Engineered Plugs

The limited self repair of cartilage impacts significantly on patient's quality of life and healthcare costs. Improved therapies include tissue engineering and acellular osteochondral scaffolds. In this paper, we describe the design of a dual-chamber bioreactor that permits direct perfusion of culture media through the osteo and chondral sections of a biphasic scaffold. We also demonstrate proof of concept data regarding this bioreactors performance in maintaining tissue phenotype. This study has demonstrated that the dual-chamber perfusion bioreactor positively influenced the co-culture of primary human chondrocytes and osteoblasts in the biphasic scaffold, in terms of cell viability, cell proliferation, extracellular matrix production and gene expression. Further work is needed in order to optimize cell seeding prior to bioreactor use. Longer-term experiments are also now needed to demonstrate the mechanical integrity of the cultured tissues and their biochemical composition. This bioreactor has the capability to house a variety of different scaffold structures and cell types (such as osteoblasts, chondrocytes and mesenchymal stem cells) and therefore the potential for in vitro testing.