In vitro cultivation of functioning passaged ciliated epithelium for trachea tissue engineering

Abstract

Background: Currently all tissue engineered trachea transplants had no ciliated epithelium until transplantation, and long-term temporary lack of mucociliary clearance leads to patients' condition decline and reduced life quality in postoperative period. So, the need for a better cultivation method and studying ciliated epithelium growth characteristics in cell culture increased rapidly. Objective: The aim of our study was to investigate cultivation of functionally complete passaged ciliated epithelium for trachea tissue engineering. Methods: Human ciliated epithelium isolated from intraoperative bioptate was used for culturing in the special complex medium with morphological and functional characteristics evaluation. Results: Ciliated epithelial cell-groups were obtained by culturing in the special complex medium. Generated cell-groups had ciliary activity and showed well-coordinated movement with functional characteristics similar to native epithelial tissue. The basic parameters of cell-activity were studied. Conclusion: Thus our study provides a new insight for the problem of ciliated epithelium in vitro culturing as well as developing the optimal laboratory method.