ARTIFICIAL TISSUES IN PERFUSION CULTURE

In the stagnant environment of traditional culture dishes it is diffic ult to generate long term experiments or artificial tissues from human cells. For this reason a perfusion culture system with a stable suppl y of nutrients was developed. Human chondrocytes were seeded three-dim ensionally in resorbable polymer fleeces. The cell-polymer tissues wer e then mounted in newly developed containers (W. W. Minuth et al, Biot echniques, 1996) and continuously perfused by fresh medium for 40 days . Samples from the effluate were analyzed daily and the pH of the medi um and glucose concentration remained stable during this period. The l actid acid concentration increased from 0, 17 mg/ml to 0,35 mg/ml, whi ch was influenced by the degradation of the resorbable polymer fibers used as three dimensional support material for the cells. This perfusi on system proved to be reliable especially in long term cultures. Any components in the culture medium of the cells could be monitored witho ut disturbances as caused by manual medium replacement. These results suggest the described perfusion culture system to be a valuable and co nvenient fool for many applications in tissue engineering, especially in the generation of artificial connective tissue.