Development of a mini 3D cell culture system using well defined nickel grids for the investigation of cell scaffold interactions.

A bioreactor system was developed using a series of fine mesh nickel grids as free standing scaffolds to investigate the behaviours of fibroblasts and keratinocytes in tissue culture. It was found that the mesh size of the suspended grids, but not of the grids that attached to tissue culture surface, had significant influences on cell behaviour and there was a maximum size for fibroblast to span within the defined culture period. Time lapse video microscopy demonstrated fibroblasts cultured on these grids initially migrated onto the struts but then worked together to fill in the voids between struts with a membranous sheet of tissue. In contrast keratinocytes barely migrated from the initial site of cell deposition and when they moved (to a modest extent) it was as an integrated sheet of cells. Similar results were observed when both types of cells were co-cultured in the system.