Controlling Mesenchyme Tissue Remodeling via Spatial Arrangement of Mechanical Constraints

Tackla S Winston; Chao Chen; Kantaphon Suddhapas; Bearett A Tarris; Saif Elattar; Shiyang Sun; Teng Zhang; Zhen Ma

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2022.833595

Controlling Mesenchyme Tissue Remodeling via Spatial Arrangement of Mechanical Constraints

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022 Feb 18:10:833595. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.833595. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Tackla S Winston^{1

2}, Chao Chen^{2

3}, Kantaphon Suddhapas^{1

2}, Bearett A Tarris^{1

2}, Saif Elattar⁴, Shiyang Sun^{1

2}, Teng Zhang^{2

3}, Zhen Ma^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, United States.
² BioInspired Syracuse Institute for Materials and Living Systems, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, United States.
³ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, United States.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.

Abstract

Tissue morphogenetic remodeling plays an important role in tissue repair and homeostasis and is often governed by mechanical stresses. In this study, we integrated an in vitro mesenchymal tissue experimental model with a volumetric contraction-based computational model to investigate how geometrical designs of tissue mechanical constraints affect the tissue remodeling processes. Both experimental data and simulation results verified that the standing posts resisted the bulk contraction of the tissues, leading to tissue thinning around the posts as gap extension and inward remodeling at the edges as tissue compaction. We changed the geometrical designs for the engineered mesenchymal tissues with different shapes of posts arrangements (triangle vs. square), different side lengths (6 mm vs. 8 mm), and insertion of a center post. Both experimental data and simulation results showed similar trends of tissue morphological changes of significant increase of gap extension and deflection compaction with larger tissues. Additionally, insertion of center post changed the mechanical stress distribution within the tissues and stabilized the tissue remodeling. This experimental-computational integrated model can be considered as a promising initiative for future mechanistic understanding of the relationship between mechanical design and tissue remodeling, which could possibly provide design rationale for tissue stability and manufacturing.

Keywords: finite element analyses; human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC); mesenchymal stem cells; tissue mechanics; tissue morphogenesis; tissue remodeling.