A Poroelastic Mixture Model of Mechanobiological Processes in Tissue Engineering. Part I: Mathematical Formulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a mathematical model combining poroelastic mixture theory and cellular population dynamics to simulate tissue engineering processes, focusing on stress and oxygen effects on chondrocyte cultivation.

Contribution

It presents a novel poroelastic mixture model incorporating mechanosensitivity via 'force isotropy' to better understand tissue growth in bioreactors.

Findings

Model captures stress and oxygen influence on cell behavior

Predicts tissue growth patterns under different conditions

Provides a framework for optimizing tissue engineering protocols

Abstract

An adequate control of cell response in tissue engineering applications is of utmost importance to obtain products suitable to clinical practice. This paper is the first part of a series of two connected publications in which we study via mathematical tools the cultivation in bioreactors of articular chondrocytes. The proposed model combines poroelastic theory of mixtures and cellular population models into a framework including stress state and oxygen tension as main determinants of engineered culture evolution. The special mechanosensitivity of articular chondrocytes to the surrounding environment is accounted for in the model through the novel concept of "force isotropy" acting on the cell which is assumed as the promoting factor of the production of new cells or extracellular matrix.