Engineering Commons^™

Igf-I And Mechanical Environment Interact To Modulate Engineered Cartilage Development, Keith Gooch, Torsten Blunk, D. Courter, Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, Predrag Bursac, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Lisa Freed

Alisha L. Sarang-Sieminski

Bovine calf articular chondrocytes were seeded onto biodegradable polyglycolic acid scaffolds and cultured for four weeks using in vitro systems providing different mechanical environments (static and mixed Petri dishes, static and mixed flasks, and rotating vessels) and different biochemical environments (medium with and without supplemental insulin-like growth factor I, IGF-I). Under all conditions, the resulting engineered tissue histologically resembled cartilage and contained its major constituents: glycosaminoglycans, collagen, and cells. The mechanical environment and supplemental IGF-I (a) independently modulated tissue morphology, growth, biochemical composition, and mechanical properties (equilibrium modulus) of engineered cartilage as previously reported; (b) interacted additively or in some …