Cardiac Tissue Engineering: Mechanical & Electrical Impact on a Perfused Reseeded Thick Scaffold

Cardiac tissue engineering aims to restore the structure and function of injured myocardium following heart attack by growing functional tissue constructs in lab conditions. However, the successful reseeding of constructs with regenerative cells remains a substantial challenge, particularly when dealing with complex thick constructs such as acellular porcine cardiac extracellular matrix (pcECM). For that purpose, we have developed a bioreactor system intended to perfuse and feed the pcECM in addition to provide mechanical and electrical stimuli, which have been shown to support and direct cell growth, differentiation and tissue functionality. This system has been applied for culturing pcECM scaffolds with regenerative cells and assessing the effect the stimuli on cell growth. Our data indicates that while electrical stimuli with perfusion improves cell viability, mechanical load with perfusion further increases cell viability and even exceeds the viability of a synchronized combination of perfusion, electrical, and mechanical stimulation for at least 3 weeks inside a bioreactor.