培養於靜態雙軸力學環境對平面人工組織機械性質的影響

Abstract

許多研究指出機械力刺激會影響細胞與胞外間質的新陳代謝，本研究以含細胞之膠原蛋白凝膠為模型了解在雙軸的機械力學環境下機械生物方面的反應。先前研究指出在雙軸靜態力學環境中經六天培養後，膠原蛋白凝膠出現不可逆之微結構改變，因此本研究想進一步了解雙軸力學刺激對於該凝膠之機械性質的影響，並研究纖維的排列方向與其相對應之機械性質。本研究以雙軸定比例張力拉伸測試證實了含細胞之膠原蛋白凝膠在特定的靜態力學環境培養下，造就機械性質的非等向性，這似乎與先前利用非線性光學顯微鏡所發現組織內之特定纖維排列的方向有關，雖然機械性質因不同的培養環境或凝膠的條件存在著一些變異。未來的研究方向將測試經雙軸動態力學刺激培養下之膠原蛋白凝膠的機械性質，也將更進一步了解機械力刺激對於組織發展的影響。

Prior studies indicated that mechanical loading influences turnover of cell and extracellular matrix in tissues. We used fibroblast–seeded collagen gels as a model to study mechano-biological responses under defined biaxial mechanical loading. Under defined biaxially of static mechanical conditions, cell-seeded collagen gels show irreversible micro-structural change after six days in culture. We thus wanted to verify that the previous mechanical constraint can also lead to a significant mechanical anisotropy that correlated to the fiber alignment and establish a link between the two. The mechanical anisotropy showed in this study appeared to be related to the fiber alignment by controlled tension extension test demonstrated in the previous study using nonlinear optical microscopy. The variations in mechanical anisotropy may be due to slightly different conditions of the gels (e.g., cell density and cell activity) or culturing environments. We will examine the influence of cyclic biaxial stretching on these gels in the near future, which likely will lead to better understanding of the role of mechanical forces on tissue development.