Kinetics of oxygen uptake by cells potentially used in a tissue engineered trachea

Synthetic polymer scaffold seeded with autologous cells have a clinical translational potential. A rational design oriented to clinical applications must ensure an efficient mass transfer of nutrients as a function of specific metabolic rates, especially for precariously vascularized tissues grown in vitro or integrated in vivo. In this work, luminescence lifetime-based sensors were used to provide accurate, extensive and non-invasive measurements of the oxygen uptake rate for human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), tracheal epithelial cells (hTEpiCs) and human chondrocytes (hCCs) within a range of 2-40% O-2 partial pressure. Estimated Michaelis-Menten parameters were: V-max = 0.099 pmol/cell.h and K-M = 2.12 x 10(-7) mol/cm(3) for hMSCs, V-max = 1.23 pmol/cell.h and K-M = 2.14 x 10(-7) mol/cm(3) for hTEpiCs, V-max = 0.515 pmol/cell hand K-M = 1.65 x 10(-7) mol/cm(3) for hCCs. Kinetics data served as an input to a preliminary computational simulation of cell culture on a poly-ethylene terephthalate (PET) tracheal scaffold obtaining an efficient mass transfer at cell density of 10(6) cell/cm(3). Oxygen concentration affected the glucose uptake and lactate production rates of cells that adapted their metabolism according to energy demand in hypoxic and normoxic conditions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.