LAUSR

BACKGROUND Novel bioengineering strategies for the ex vivo fabrication of native-like tissue-engineered cartilage are crucial for the translation of these approaches to clinically manage highly prevalent and debilitating joint diseases. Bioreactors that provide different biophysical stimuli have been used in tissue engineering approaches aimed at enhancing the quality of the cartilage tissue generated. However, such systems are often highly complex, costly and not very versatile. Main methods and major results: In the current study, we propose a novel, cost-effective and customizable perfusion bioreactor totally fabricated by additive manufacturing (AM) for the study of the effect of fluid flow on the chondrogenic differentiation of human bone-marrow mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hBMSCs) in 3D porous poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) scaffolds. hBMSCs were firstly seeded and grown on PCL scaffolds and hBMSCs-PCL constructs were then transferred to 3D-extruded bioreactors for continuous perfusion culture under chondrogenic inductive conditions. Perfused constructs showed similar cell metabolic activity and significantly higher sulfated glycosaminoglycan production (≈1.8-fold) in comparison to their non-perfused counterparts. Importantly, perfusion bioreactor culture significantly promoted the expression of chondrogenic marker genes while downregulating hypertrophy. CONCLUSIONS Overall, our results show that the chondrogenic differentiation of hBMSCs was improved in tissue constructs obtained under bioreactor perfusion culture. This work highlights the potential of customizable AM platforms for the development of novel personalized repair strategies and more reliable in vitro models with a wide range of applications . This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.