Tissue engineered composite of a woven fabric scaffold with tendon cells, response on mechanical simulation in vitro

In reconstructive surgery, complications of implanted textiles are often associated with mechanical and structural incompatibility between implant and host tissue. Ingrowing cells and maturation of an extracellular matrix form together with the textile a vital/avital composite and by this change mechanical properties of the textile implant. Thus, a profound understanding is required to consider these effects in the design of the implant. Mechanical stimulation in tissue engineering is proposed as a viable experimental technique to investigate structure-properties relations to design vital/avital composites. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cyclic mechanical stimulation (2% sinusoidal strain, 1 h at 0.5 Hz stimulation followed by 6 h recreation phase at 0.01 Hz) on a vital/avitat composite that consists of a woven fabric as scaffold and confluent tendon fibroblasts as the vital matrix. The force response during the exertion phase could be correlated to dynamic orientation of f-actin filaments in the cytosceleton.