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The protocol describes an imaging-enabled bioreactor that allows the selective removal of the endogenous epithelium from the rat trachea and homogenous distribution of exogenous cells on the lumen surface, followed by long-term in vitro culture of the cell-tissue construct.
Repeated injury to airway tissue can impair lung function and cause chronic lung disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Advances in regenerative medicine and bioreactor technologies offer opportunities to produce lab-grown functional tissue and organ constructs that can be used to screen drugs, model disease, and engineer tissue replacements. Here, a miniaturized bioreactor coupled with an imaging modality that allows in situ visualization of the inner lumen of explanted rat trachea during in vitro tissue manipulation and culture is described. Using this bioreactor, the protocol demonstrates imaging-guided selective removal of endogenous cellular components while preserving the intrinsic biochemical features and ultrastructure of the airway tissue matrix. Furthermore, the delivery, uniform distribution, and subsequent prolonged culture of exogenous cells on the decellularized airway lumen with optical monitoring in situ are shown. The results highlight that the imaging-guided bioreactor can potentially be used to facilitate the generation of functional in vitro airway tissues.
The luminal surface of the respiratory tract is lined by a layer of epithelium that mainly consists of multi-ciliated, club, goblet, and basal stem cells1,2. The epithelial layer serves as a primary defense mechanism of the lung, acting as a biophysical barrier that protects the underlying airway tissue against inhaled pathogens, particulates, or chemical gases. It protects the airway tissue via multiple mechanisms, including intercellular tight junction formation, mucociliary clearance, and antimicrobial and antioxidant secretion3,4. The defective airway epithelium is associated with devastating respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)5, primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD)6, and cystic fibrosis (CF)7.
Advances in lung-on-chip (LOC) technology represent an opportunity to study human lung development, model various lung diseases, and develop new therapeutic materials in tightly regulated in vitro environments. For example, airway epithelium and endothelium can be cultured on opposite sides of a thin, porous membrane to mimic the gas exchanging lung tissue, allowing faithful disease modeling and drug testing8. Similarly, in vitro disease models have been created to model airway diseases in vitro, such as COPD9 and cystic fibrosis10. However, a major challenge of LOC devices is recapitulating the complex three-dimensional (3D) architecture of the lung tissue and dynamic cell-tissue matrix interactions in vitro11.
Recently, innovative tissue engineering methodologies have been developed that allow manipulation of ex vivo lung tissues12. Using these methodologies, denuded allogenic or xenogeneic tissue grafts can be prepared by removing the endogenous cells from the lung tissue via chemical, physical, and mechanical treatments13. In addition, the preserved native tissue extracellular matrix (ECM) in the decellularized lung scaffolds provide the physio-mimetic structural, biochemical, and biomechanical cues for implanted cells to attach, proliferate, and differentiate14,15.
Here, an imaging-guided bioreactor system created by combining LOC and tissue engineering technologies to allow in vitro tissue manipulation and culture of explanted rat tracheal tissues is reported. Using this airway tissue bioreactor, the protocol demonstrates selective removal of the endogenous epithelial cells without disrupting the underlying subepithelial cellular and biochemical components of the airway tissue. We next show the homogenous distribution and instantaneous deposition of the newly seeded exogenous cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), on the denuded airway lumen by instilling the cell-loaded collagen I pre-gel solution. In addition, by using the micro-optical imaging device integrated into the bioreactor, the visualization of the trachea lumen during epithelium removal and endogenous cell delivery is also done. Further, it is shown that the trachea and newly implanted cells can be cultured in the bioreactor without noticeable cell death and tissue degradation for 4 days. We envision that the imaging-enabled bioreactor platform, the thin film-based de-epithelialization technique, and the cell delivery method used in this study can be useful for generating airway tissues for in vitro disease modeling and drug screening.
The bioreactor includes a rectangular chamber connected to a programmable syringe pump, perfusion pump, and ventilator for culturing isolated rat trachea. The bioreactor features inlets and outlets connected to the trachea or the tissue culture chamber to separately supply reagents (e.g., culture media) to the internal and external spaces of the trachea (Figure 1). A custom-built imaging system can be used to visualize the interior of the in vitro-cultured rat trachea at the cellular level (Figure 2). The endogenous epithelium of the trachea is removed via the instillation of a detergent-based decellularization solution followed by vibration-assisted airway washing (Figure 3). Hydrogel solution, such as type I collagen, is used as a delivery vehicle for seeding exogenous cells uniformly and instantaneously across the denuded trachea lumen (Figure 4). All the materials used to construct the bioreactor and conduct the experiments are provided in the Table of Materials.
The animal tissue protocol below has been approved by the animal welfare guideline and regulations of the Institute for Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Stevens Institute of Technology, and it complies with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines for the use of experimental animals.
1. Design and construction of imaging-guided rat trachea bioreactor
2. Isolation of the rat trachea
3. Imaging-guided removal of the trachea epithelium
4. Trachea tissue preparation for further analyses
5. Homogeneous distribution of exogenous cells onto the denuded tracheal lumen
The GRIN lens-based in situ imaging modality can allow visualization of the tracheal inner lumen in situ (Figure 5A). Using this imaging method, both bright-field and fluorescent images of the native and de-epithelialized tracheas can be obtained (Figure 5B,C). No fluorescent signal was observed from the native trachea prior to CFSE labeling (Figure 5Bii). However, when the tracheal epithelium was ...
In this work, we created an imaging-guided bioreactor that can allow (i) monitoring of the trachea lumen in situ after the cell removal and exogenous cell delivery and (ii) long-term in vitro culture of the cell-seeded trachea tissue. Using this custom-built bioreactor, we demonstrated (i) selective removal of the endogenous epithelial cells from the trachea lumen using detergent and vibration-assisted airway wash and (ii) uniform distribution of exogenous cells onto the luminal surface of the denuded t...
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
This research has been supported in part by the American Thoracic Society Foundation Research Program, the New Jersey Health Foundation, and the National Science Foundation (CAREER Award 2143620) to J.K.; and the National Institutes of Health (P41 EB027062) to G.V.N.
Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
1× PBS | Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific | 10-010-031 | |
3-port connector | World Precision Instruments | 14048-20 | |
4-port connector | World Precision Instruments | 14047-10 | |
Accelerometer | STMicroelectronics | IIS3DWBTR | |
Achromatic doublet | Thorlabs | AC254-150-A-ML | |
Aluminum pin stub | TED PELLA | 16111 | |
Antibiotic-antimycotic | Thermo Fisher Scientific | 15240062 | |
Assembly rod | Thorlabs | ER1 | |
Button head screws | McMaster-Carr | 91255A274 | |
Cage cube | Thorlabs | C4W | |
Carbon double-sided conductive tape | TED PELLA | 16073 | |
CFSE labelling kit | Abcam | ab113853 | |
Citrisolv (clearing agent) | Decon | 1061 | |
C-mount adapter | Thorlabs | SM1A9 | |
Collagen I | Advanced BioMatrix | 5153 | |
Conductive liquid silver paint | TED PELLA | 16034 | |
Dichroic mirror | Semrock | DI03-R488 | Reflected laser wavelengths: 473.0 +- 2 nm 488.0 +3/-2 nm |
Dulbecco's modified Eagle’s medium | Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific | 11965118 | |
Female luer bulkhead to hose barb adapter | Cole-Parmer | EW-45501-30 | |
Female luer to tubing barb | Cole-Parmer | EW-45508-03 | |
Female to male luer connector | Cole-Parmer | ZY-45508-80 | |
Fetal bovine serum | Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific | 10082147 | |
Filter lens | Chroma Technology Corp | ET535/50m | |
Fluorescent microscope | Nikon | Eclipse E1000 - D | |
Fusion 360 | Autodesk | ||
Hex nut | McMaster-Carr | 91813A160 | |
Hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) | Fisher Scientifc | AC120585000 | |
Imaging fiber | SELFOC, NSG group | GRIN lens | |
Laser | Opto Engine | MDL-D-488-150mW | |
Lens tubes | Thorlabs | SM1L40 | |
LIVE/DEAD Viability/Cytotoxicity Kit (Invitrogen) | Thermo Fisher Scientific | L3224 | |
MACH 3 CNC Control Software | Newfangled Solutions | ||
Objective lens | Olympus | UCPLFLN20X | |
Peristaltic Pump | Cole Parmer | L/S standard digital pump system | |
Recombinant human FGF-basic | PeproTech | 100-18B | |
Retaining ring | Thorlabs | SM1RR | |
Scientific CMOS camera | PCO Panda | PCO Panda 4.2 | |
Sodium dodecyl sulfate | VWR | 97064-472 | |
Solidworks (2019) | Dassault Systèmes | ||
Stackable lens tube | Thorlabs | SM1L10 | |
Subwoofer plate amplifier | Dayton Audio | SPA250DSP | |
Subwoofer speaker | Dayton Audio | RSS21OHO-4 | Diaphragm diameter: 21 cm |
Syringe Pump | World Precision Instruments | AL-4000 | |
Threaded cage plate | Thorlabs | CP33 | |
Threaded luer adapter | Cole-Parmer | EW-45513-81 | |
Tube lens | Thorlabs | AC254-150-A-ML | |
Tygon Tubing | Cole-Parmer | 13-200-110 | |
XY Translator | Thorlabs | CXY1 |
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