Journal article
Biomimetic corneal stroma using electro-compacted collagen
Zhi Chen, Xiao Liu, Jingjing You, Yihui Song, Eva Tomaskovic-Crook, Gerard Sutton, Jeremy M Crook, Gordon G Wallace
Acta Biomaterialia | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2020
Abstract
Engineering substantia propria (or stroma of cornea) that mimics the function and anatomy of natural tissue is vital for in vitro modelling and in vivo regeneration. There are, however, few examples of bioengineered biomimetic corneal stroma. Here we describe the construction of an orthogonally oriented 3D corneal stroma model (3D-CSM) using pure electro-compacted collagen (EC). EC films comprise aligned collagen fibrils and support primary human corneal stromal cells (hCSCs). Cell-laden constructs are analogous to the anatomical structure of native human cornea. The hCSCs are guided by the topographical cues provided by the aligned collagen fibrils of the EC films. Importantly, the 3D-CSM a..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence Scheme
Awarded by ARC through an ARC Laureate Fellowship
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence Scheme (CE140100012) and Professor Gordon Wallace acknowledges the support of the ARC through an ARC Laureate Fellowship (FL110100196). Also, the authors acknowledge the support of the Australian National Nanofabrication Facility (ANFF) Materials node, use of facilities at the UOW Electron Microscopy Centre, Dr. Johnson Chung and Steven Posniak for training and technical advice for RT-qPCR, Alireza Talaei for developing the glucose diffusion chamber, Dr. Andrew Nattestad for technical advice to use the UV-3600 spectrometer, and Dan Yang and Prof. Michael Higgins for providing technical advice and training for AFM.