Varying Culture Conditions to Enhance Tissue Formation

For severe muscle damage, tissue engineering has become a viable option to culture muscle tissues with the ultimate goal of implantation. However, the tissues are typically cultured on permanent scaffolds which would elicit a foreign body response if placed in the body. To avoid this, biological scaffolds are ideal for tissue culture and limiting any negative reactions. A sacrificial scaffold can be used to gather extracellular matrix (ECM), which can then be used as the primary scaffold for culturing tissues for implantation. To reach the ultimate goal of implanting muscle tissue, an understanding of how to produce ECM on a larger scale must also be gained. Supplementing culture media with pro-fibrotic molecules is an option to consider for enhancing ECM formation. Two conditions, molecular crowding and the addition of transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1), were considered. In addition, the effect of the concentration of TGF-β1 on material yield was also analyzed. In the first experiment, molecular crowding macromolecules, TGF-β1, and a control with no additives were considered.. For the second experiment, concentrations of TGF-β1 at 0.5, 1, and 5 ng/mL were added to culture media and material yield was compared t