Comparative study of seeding methods for three-dimensional polymeric scaffolds

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Abstract
Development of tissue‐engineered devices may be enhanced by combining cells with porous absorbable polymeric scaffolds before implantation. The cells are seeded throughout the scaffolds and allowed to proliferate in vitro for a predetermined amount of time. The distribution of cells throughout the porous material is one critical component determining success or failure of the tissue‐engineered device. This can influence both the successful integration of the device with the host tissue as well as the development of a vascularized network throughout the entire scaffold volume. This research sought to compare different seeding and proliferation methods to select an ideal method for a polyglycolide/aortic endothelial cell system. Two seeding environments, static and dynamic, and three proliferation environments, static, dynamic, and bioreactor, were analyzed, for a total of six possible methods. The six seeding and proliferation combinations were analyzed following a 1‐week total culture time. It was determined that for this specific system, dynamic seeding followed by a dynamic proliferation phase is the least promising method and dynamic seeding followed by a bioreactor proliferation phase is the most promising. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 51, 642–649, 2000.