Effects of seeding methods on seeding efficiency and initial cell distribution in 3-D scaffolds / 生物工程学报

ABSTRACT

Cell seeding of three-dimensional scaffolds is the first step of the cultivation of engineered tissues. The cell seeding density and spatial distribution in a 3-D scaffold are critical to the morphogenetic development of an engineered tissue. In the present work, human fibroblasts were seeded to collagen-chitosan sponges by static seeding, stirred seeding and perfusion seeding. The effects of seeding conditions on the resulting seeding density, the seeding efficiency and the initial cell distribution were studied. The seeding efficiency was relatively high (88.9%) at low inoculation cell density, and decreased rapidly wjth the increasing of inoculation cell density in static seeding. Stirred seeding yielded the lowest seeding efficiency. Nonuniform initial cell distribution was observed in both static and stirred seeding. The perfusion seeding, which has a characteristic of high seeding efficiency (>77%) , high initial cell density and uniform initial cell distribution in 3-D scaffolds, is the optimum method for cell seeding to 3-D scaffold.