Patterning of Endothelial Cells and Mesenchymal Stem Cells by Laser-Assisted Bioprinting to Study Cell Migration.

Jean-Michel Bourget,Sylvain Catros,Raphaël Devillard,Olivier Chassande,Reine Bareille,Olivia Kérourédan,Manuela Medina,Joëlle Amédée,Noélie Brunehilde Thébaud,Murielle Rémy

doi:10.1155/2016/3569843

Abstract

Tissue engineering of large organs is currently limited by the lack of potent vascularization in vitro. Tissue-engineered bone grafts can be prevascularized in vitro using endothelial cells (ECs). The microvascular network architecture could be controlled by printing ECs following a specific pattern. Using laser-assisted bioprinting, we investigated the effect of distance between printed cell islets and the influence of coprinted mesenchymal cells on migration. When printed alone, ECs spread out evenly on the collagen hydrogel, regardless of the distance between cell islets. However, when printed in coculture with mesenchymal cells by laser-assisted bioprinting, they remained in the printed area. Therefore, the presence of mesenchymal cell is mandatory in order to create a pattern that will be conserved over time. This work describes an interesting approach to study cell migration that could be reproduced to study the effect of trophic factors.

Highlights

The in vitro reconstruction of large tissues and organs by tissue engineering is currently limited by the lack of an appropriate vascularization of those constructs [1, 2]
It has been shown that the lack of vascularization of tissue-engineered bones leads to hypoxia and cell death after implantation [3, 4] and that bone-regenerative capacity of bone marrow stromal cells is improved when those are transplanted into a bone defect model with endothelial cells [5]
The printing of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (HBMSCs) and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) allowed verifying the precision of the printing procedure

Summary

Introduction

The in vitro reconstruction of large tissues and organs by tissue engineering is currently limited by the lack of an appropriate vascularization of those constructs [1, 2]. Several strategies for enhancing vascularization are under investigation [6] They include scaffold designed to promote angiogenesis [7, 8], in vitro prevascularization [9,10,11,12], and inclusion of angiogenic factors [13]. Seeding of endothelial cells (ECs) leads to a random network without possible organization into a complex structure. This drawback could be overcome by using bioprinting [15], allowing controlling the location of cells and built complex organs

Methods

Results

Conclusion