Short-term human chondrocyte culturing on oriented collagen coated gelatine scaffolds for cartilage replacement.

The biological, biochemical, mechanical, and structural properties of artificial scaffolds for tissue engineering are known to be of great importance. Therefore, in this study a hydrogel derived scaffold with biomechanical and structural properties similar to native articular cartilage was synthesized. The gelatine-based hydrogel was processed by freeze-structuring, structuring by electrochemical water-decomposition, freeze-drying and chemical fixation resulting in a defined scaffold-structure. By electron microscopy a perpendicular pore-channel structure was verified with channel diameters between 30 microm and 70 microm. Mechanical testing showed mechanical properties similar to native cartilage. Human chondrocytes from biopsy samples were cultivated on these hydrogel scaffolds for three days. Two different cell densities (1.2 x 10(6) cells/cm3 and 12.0 x 10(6) cells/cm3) were used for cultivation. Histology of the cell seeded artificial scaffolds demonstrated vital cells that are widely distributed within the scaffold and mimic a columnar arrangement.