MECHANICALLY GUIDED UROLOGICAL TISSUE REGENERATION IN VITRO

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 Atala等人最近在膀胱组织工程方面取得的临床成功(1)证明了将合成聚合物支架与宿主细胞相结合用于膀胱重建的可行性。然而，仍有几个问题尚未解决。例如，体外培养长时间的膀胱平滑肌细胞会导致这些细胞的去分化和收缩表型的丧失。我们的研究组先前证明，与无张力对照组相比，承受持续张力的膀胱SMC的3D培养显示出显著更高的收缩表型标记水平[2]。我们假设，3D培养的膀胱SMCs暴露在适当的机械刺激下，可以引导细胞生长并保持收缩表型。本研究的长期目标是开发引导SMC生长的生物材料和生物反应器系统，用于组织工程应用。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Recent clinical success in bladder tissue engineering by Atala el al (1) demonstrated the feasibility of this technology to combine synthetic polymer scaffolds with host cells for bladder reconstruction. Yet, there remain several unresolved issues. For example, in-vitro culturing of bladder smooth muscle cells for a prolonged time period results in de-differentiation and loss of the contractile phenotype of these cells. Our group previously demonstrated that 3D cultures of bladder SMCs subjected to sustained tension exhibited significantly greater levels of contractile phenotype markers compared to the no-tension control (2). We hypothesize that exposure of 3D culture of bladder SMCs to appropriate mechanical stimuli leads to guided cell growth and retention of contractile phenotype. The long-term objective of the present study is to develop both biomaterials and a bioreactor system that guide SMC growth for use in the tissue engineering applications.