Non-destructive assessment of cell repopulation in scaffolds for osteochondral regeneration through X-ray phase-contrast microtomography

骨软骨组织工程是一个正在发展的领域，旨在了解和修复软骨和骨之间的附着点。这个过程中的一个主要挑战是三维支架的表征及其与细胞的相互作用，特别是大多数可用的成像技术使用2D或样品破坏性方法。X射线的独特之处在于其能够以非破坏性的深度穿透和高分辨率来证明不透明组织的体积。当感兴趣的细节与背景具有不同的原子组成时，它们通常提供良好的对比度，然而，当在相似类型的组织之间需要对比度时，衰减差异的缺乏阻止了显微断层摄影的常规方法的有效性。我们建议研究X射线相衬成像技术，以克服开发这些类型的结构的障碍，通过提供一种非破坏性的检查技术，能够可视化细胞迁移和支架重建。该项目将涉及成像方法的自下而上的开发，特别是针对这些样本带来的挑战。随后将进行实验，以证明新方法的能力及其与骨软骨再生研究工作流程的整合。该方法一旦确定，将通过国家X射线断层摄影研究设施提供给工业界和学术界的研究人员。

Osteochondral tissue engineering is an expanding field aiming to understand and repair the enthesis between cartilage and bone. One major challenge in this process is the characterization of the three-dimensional scaffolds and their interaction with cells, particularly as most available imaging techniques use either 2D or sample-destructive approaches. X-rays are unique in their ability to prove volumes of opaque tissue with depth penetration and high resolution non-destructively. They usually provide good contrast when the details of interest are of different atomic compositions to the background, however, when contrast is needed between similar types of tissue the lack of differences in attenuation prevents the conventional approaches to microtomography from being effective. We proposed investigating X-ray phase contrast imaging techniques to overcome a roadblock in developing these types of constructs by providing a non-destructive inspection technology capable of visualising cell migration and scaffold repopulation. The project will involve a bottom-up development of the imaging methodology, specifically targeting the challenges posed by these samples. Experiments will follow for demonstrating the new approach's capabilities and its integration into osteochondral regeneration research workflows. Once established the methodology will be made available to researchers from Industry and Academia through the National Research Facility for X-ray Tomography.