Abstract
In recent years, plant-derived cellulosic biomaterials have become a popular way to create scaffolds for a variety of tissue engineering applications. Moreover, such scaffolds possess similar physical properties (porosity, stiffness) that resemble bone tissues and have been explored as potential biomaterials for tissue engineering applications. Here, plant-derived cellulose scaffolds were seeded with MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblast cells. Moreover, to assess the potential these biomaterials we also applied cyclic hydrostatic pressure (HP) to the cells and scaffolds over time to mimic a bone-like environment more closely. After one week of proliferation, cell-seeded scaffolds were exposed to HP up to 270 KPa at a frequency of 1Hz, once per day, for up to two weeks. Scaffolds were incubated in osteogenic inducing media (OM) or regular culture media (CM). The effect of cyclic HP combined with OM on cell-seeded scaffolds resulted in an increase of differentiated cells. This corresponded with an upregulation of alkaline phosphatase activity and scaffold mineralization. The results reveal that in vitro, the mechanosensitive pathways which regulate osteogenesis appear to be functional on novel plant-derived cellulosic biomaterials.
Competing Interest Statement
M.L.L and A.E.P. are inventors on patent applications concerning the use of native cellulose for bone tissue engineering applications filed by the University of Ottawa and Spiderwort Inc. M.L.L. and A.E.P. have financial interests in Spiderwort Inc.