Computational simulation of oscillatory flow on stem cells in a bioreactor

Regenerative medicine allows the replacement of damaged tissue due to injury or disease. Bone is one of the tissues that need to be regenerated in some diseases. For this purpose, stem cells are differentiated into osteocytes using a combination of scaffold and bioreactor. The scaffold's pores' size and shape are effective parameters on the differentiation of stem cells. In this study, the distribution of shear stress and fluid flow has been studied using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. In addition, stem cells consisting of a nucleus, cytoplasm, and cilium were modeled, and their response to oscillatory flow was evaluated using the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method. The results showed that scaffolds with spherical and cubic pores with a pore length of 500 mu m and scaffolds with hexagonal pores with a pore length of 450 mu m have shear stresses in the range of 0.1-10 mPa. The maximum magnitude of von Mises stress in cell components occurred in the cilium. The maximum deviation value in the cilium was 0.015 mu m, which was observed in the scaffold with cubical pores. The results showed the effect of scaffold geometry that, according to biomechanical properties, can be used in various bone applications.