Glucose diffusivity in cell-seeded tissue engineering scaffolds

Objective: A series of well-defined diffusion experiments was carried out to determine the effective glucose diffusion coefficient in cell-seeded porous scaffolds to understand the importance of nutrient diffusion in tissue engineering bioreactor. Results Cell growth changed the morphological structure of the scaffolds reducing the effective pore space and inevitably decreased the effective glucose diffusivity in the chosen scaffolds, namely, collagen, poly(L-lactide) and poly(caprolactone) scaffolds from 3.71 x 10-9 m2/s to 3.23 x 10-9 m2/s, 1.39 x 10-10 m2/s to 9.09 x 10-11 m2/s and 1.78 x 10-10 m2/s to 1.32 x 10-10 m2/s, respectively. Conclusions The presence of cells over time during cell culture reduces the mobility of glucose. The results of this study should be possible to use to predict the glucose concentration profiles in thick engineered tissues.