Abstract
Large bone defects cannot heal without intervention and have high complication rates even with the best treatments available. In contrast, bone fractures naturally healing with high success rates by recapitulating the process of bone development through endochondral ossification. Endochondral tissue engineering may represent a promising paradigm, but large bone defects are unable to naturally form a callus. We engineered mesenchymal condensations featuring local morphogen presentation (TGF-β1) to mimic the cellular organization and lineage progression of the early limb bud. As mechanical forces are critical for proper endochondral ossification during bone morphogenesis and fracture healing, we hypothesized that mechanical cues would be important for endochondral regeneration. Here, using fixation plates that modulate ambulatory load transfer through dynamic tuning of axial compliance, we found that in vivo mechanical loading was necessary to restore bone function to large bone defects through endochondral ossification. Endochondral regeneration produced zonal cartilage and primary spongiosa mimetic of the native growth plate. Live human chondrocytes contributed to endochondral regeneration in vivo, while cell devitalization prior to condensation transplantation abrogated bone formation. Mechanical loading induced regeneration comparable to high-dose BMP-2 delivery, but without heterotopic bone formation and with order-of-magnitude greater mechanosensitivity. In vitro, mechanical loading promoted chondrogenesis, and upregulated pericellular collagen deposition and angiogenic gene expression. Consistently, in vivo mechanical loading regulated cartilage formation and neovascular invasion dependent on load timing. Together, this study represents the first demonstration of the effects of mechanical loading on transplanted cell-mediated bone defect regeneration, and provides a new template for recapitulating developmental programs for tissue engineering.
