Application of sodium triple‐quantum coherence NMR spectroscopy for the study of growth dynamics in cartilage tissue engineering

We studied the tissue growth dynamics of tissue‐engineered cartilage at an early growth stage after cell seeding for four weeks using sodium triple‐quantum coherence NMR spectroscopy. The following tissue‐engineering constructs were studied: 1) bovine chondrocytes cultured in alginate beads; 2) bovine chondrocytes cultured as pellets (scaffold‐free chondrocyte pellets); and 3) human marrow stromal cells (HMSCs) seeded in collagen/chitosan based biomimetic scaffolds. We found that the sodium triple‐quantum coherence spectroscopy could differentiate between different tissue‐engineered constructs and native tissues based on the fast and slow components of relaxation rate as well as on the average quadrupolar coupling. Both fast (T_f) and slow (T_s) relaxation times were found to be longer in chondrocyte pellets and biomimetic scaffolds compared to chondrocytes suspended in alginate beads and human articular cartilage tissues. In all cases, it was found that relaxation rates and motion of sodium ions measured from correlation times were dependent on the amount of macromolecules, high cell density and anisotropy of the cartilage tissue‐engineered constructs. Average quadrupolar couplings were found to be lower in the engineered tissue compared to native tissue, presumably due to the lack of order in collagen accumulated in the engineered tissue. These results support the use of sodium triple‐quantum coherence spectroscopy as a tool to investigate anisotropy and growth dynamics of cartilage tissue‐engineered constructs in a simple and reliable way. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.