A novel customizable modular bioreactor system for whole-heart cultivation under controlled 3D biomechanical stimulation

In the last decade, cardiovascular tissue engineering has made great progress developing new strategies for regenerative medicine applications. However, while tissue engineered heart valves are already entering the clinical routine, tissue engineered myocardial substitutes are still restrained to experimental approaches. In contrast to the heart valves, tissue engineered myocardium cannot be repopulated in vivo because of its biological complexity, requiring elaborate cultivation conditions ex vivo. Although new promising approaches—like the whole-heart decellularization concept—have entered the myocardial tissue engineering field, bioreactor technology needed for the generation of functional myocardial tissue still lags behind in the sense of user-friendly, flexible and low cost systems. Here, we present a novel customizable modular bioreactor system that can be used for whole-heart cultivation. Out of a commercially obtainable original equipment manufacturer platform we constructed a modular bioreactor system specifically aimed at the cultivation of decellularized whole-hearts through perfusion and controlled 3D biomechanical stimulation with a simple but highly flexible operation platform based on LabVIEW^®. The modular setup not only allows a wide range of variance regarding medium conditioning under controlled 3D myocardial stretching but can also easily be upgraded for e.g. electrophysiological monitoring or stimulation, allowing for a tailor-made low-cost myocardial bioreactor system.