Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 8, 2026
Generation and Grafting of Tissue-engineered Vessels in a Mouse Model
Published on: March 18, 2015
Perfusion bioreactor-based cryopreservation of 3D human mesenchymal stromal cell tissue grafts
Y A Petrenko1, A Y Petrenko2, I Martin3
1Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine, NAS Ukraine, Kharkov, Ukraine; Department of Biomaterials and Biophysical Methods, Institute of Experimental Medicine AS CR v.v.i, Prague, Czech Republic; Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
The generation of an off-the-shelf in vitro engineered living tissue graft will likely require cryopreservation. However, the efficient addition and removal of cryoprotective agents (CPA) to cells throughout the volume of a three-dimensional (3D) tissue graft remains a significant challenge. In this work, we assessed whether a perfusion bioreactor-based method could be used to improve the viability of cryopreserved mesenchymal stromal cell- (MSC) based tissue constructs as compared to using conventional diffusion-based methods. The bioreactor was first used to saturate 3D constructs with CPA under perfused flow. Following cryopreservation, the bioreactor was then also used for the efficient removal of the CPA from the 3D tissues. We demonstrate that addition and removal of CPA under perfused flow significantly increased the viability of MSC within cryopreserved 3D tissue constructs as compared to conventional diffusion-based methods.
