Driving hierarchical collagen fiber formation for functional tendon, ligament and meniscus replacement
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Published version
Author(s)
Puetzer, JL
Ma, Tianchi
Sallent, Ignacio
Gelmi, A
Stevens, Molly
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Hierarchical collagen fibers are the primary source of strength in musculoskeletal tendons, ligaments, and menisci. It has remained a challenge to develop these large fibers in engineered replacements or in vivo after injury. The objective of this study was to investigate the ability of restrained cell-seeded high density collagen gels to drive hierarchical fiber formation for multiple musculoskeletal tissues. We found boundary conditions applied to high density collagen gels were capable of driving tenocytes, ligament fibroblasts, and meniscal fibrochondrocytes to develop native-sized hierarchical collagen fibers 20–40 μm in diameter. The fibers organize similar to bovine juvenile collagen with native fibril banding patterns and hierarchical fiber bundles 50–350 μm in diameter by 6 weeks. Mirroring fiber organization, tensile properties of restrained samples improved significantly with time, reaching ~1 MPa. Additionally, tendon, ligament, and meniscal cells produced significantly different sized fibers, different degrees of crimp, and different GAG concentrations, which corresponded with respective juvenile tissue. To our knowledge, these are some of the largest, most organized fibers produced to date in vitro. Further, cells produced tissue specific hierarchical fibers, suggesting this system is a promising tool to better understand cellular regulation of fiber formation to better stimulate it in vivo after injury.
Date Issued
2021-02
Date Acceptance
2020-11-03
Citation
Biomaterials, 2021, 269, pp.1-10
ISSN
0142-9612
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
10
Journal / Book Title
Biomaterials
Volume
269
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Commission of the European Communities
Wellcome Trust
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Commission of the European Communities
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961220307730?via%3Dihub
Grant Number
RA26F7
MR/R015651/1
660757
098411/Z/12/Z
MR/L012677/1
ERC-2013-CoG-616417
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Engineering, Biomedical
Materials Science, Biomaterials
Engineering
Materials Science
Collagen
Tendon
Ligament
Meniscus
Hierarchical
Fibrillogenesis
Collagen
Fibrillogenesis
Hierarchical
Ligament
Meniscus
Tendon
Biomedical Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-11-16