Electrospun hollow fibres for muscle tissue engineering in a soft bioreactor chamber

肌肉组织工程涉及使用生物材料、细胞和生物反应器系统来产生功能性肌肉组织结构。这一领域为体外模型的开发提供了广阔的前景，可以在药物开发和药物筛选以及发育和病理生理过程的研究中有许多应用。可靠且临床适用的体外组织结构的开发将极大地减少用于生物和医学研究或临床前研究的动物数量。该领域的挑战之一是扩散限制，这阻碍了较厚结构中的气体和养分交换。这代表了肌肉组织工程的一个特别重要的方面，因为组织对新陈代谢的要求很高。另一个限制因素是应用适当的外部机械刺激来支持发育中组织的成熟。具体地说，众所周知，肌肉组织的生长和成熟严重依赖机械输入。需要解决这些挑战，以创造具有增强的结构完整性和功能的可靠的和临床相关的组织结构。该项目旨在通过开发一种容纳柔性中空纤维的软生物反应器模块来应对这两个挑战。我们的研究小组最近开发了用于血管组织工程的中空电纺纤维，以及一种独特的可接受类人机器人刺激的柔性生物反应器。总而言之，这两项技术可以提供一个更好的环境，以支持合成大型和功能性骨骼肌组织结构。

Muscle tissue engineering involves the use of biomaterials, cells, and bioreactor systems to generate functional muscle tissue constructs. This field holds great promises for the development of in vitro models, which could have many applications in drug development and drug screening as well as for the study of developmental and pathophysiological processes. The development of reliable and clinically applicable in vitro tissue constructs would drastically reduce the number of animals that are being used in biological and medical research or for preclinical studies. One of the challenges in the field is the diffusion limit which impedes gas and nutrient exchange in thicker constructs. This represents a particularly important aspect for muscle tissue engineering due to the tissue's high metabolic demands. Another limiting factor is the application of appropriate external mechanical stimulation to support the maturation of developing tissues. Specifically, muscle tissue is known to significantly rely on mechanical input for growth and maturation. These challenges need to be addressed in order to create reliable and clinically relevant tissue constructs with enhanced structural integrity and functionality. This project aims to address both challenges through the development of a soft bioreactor module that hosts flexible hollow fibres. Our research group has recently developed hollow electrospun fibres for vascular tissue engineering and a unique flexible bioreactor chamber that can undergo stimulation by humanoid robots. Together, those 2 technologies could provide an improved environment to support the synthesis of large and functional skeletal muscle tissue constructs.