Generation and Evaluation of Novel Stromal Cell-Containing Tissue Engineered Artificial Stromas for the Surgical Repair of Abdominal Defects

Abstract

Repair of abdominal wall defects is one of the major clinical challenges inabdominal surgery. Most biomaterials are associated to infection and severecomplications, making necessary safer and more biocompatible approaches.In the present work, the adequate mechanical properties of synthetic polymermeshes with tissue-engineered matrices containing stromal mesenchymalcells is combined to generate a novel cell-containing tissue-like artificialstroma (SCTLAS) for use in abdominal wall repair. SCTLAS consisting onfibrin-agarose hydrogels seeded with stromal cells and reinforced withcommercial surgical meshes (SM) are evaluated in vitro and in vivo in animalmodels of abdominal wall defect. Inflammatory cells, collagen, and extracellu-lar matrix (ECM) components are analyzed and compared with grafted SM.Use of SCTLAS results in less inflammation and less fibrosis than SM, withmost ECM components being very similar to control abdominal wall tissues.Cell migration and ECM remodeling within SCTLAS is comparable to controltissues. The use of SCTLAS could contribute to reduce the side-effectsassociated to currently available SM and regenerated tissues are more similarto control abdominal wall tissues. Bioengineered SCTLAS could contribute toa safer treatment of abdominal wall defects with higher biocompatibility thancurrently available SM