Abstract

Background

Advances in molecular biology and growing requirements from biomarker validation studies have generated a need for tissue banks to provide quality-controlled tissue samples with standardized clinical annotation. The NCI Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource (CPCTR) is a distributed tissue bank that comprises four academic centers and provides thousands of clinically annotated prostate cancer specimens to researchers. Tissue Engineering is an important method for generating cartilage tissue with isolated autologous cells and the support of biomaterials. In contrast to various gel-like biomaterials, human demineralized bone matrix (DBM) guarantees some biomechanical stability for an application in biomechanically loaded regions. After isolating human nasal chondrocytes and creating a three-dimensional macroaggregate arrangement, the DBM was cultivated in vitro with the macroaggregates.The interaction of the cells within the DBM was analyzed with respect to cell differentiation and the inhibitory effects of chondrocyte proliferation. In contrast to chondrocyte-macroaggregates in the cell-DBM constructs, morphologically modified cells expressing type I collagen dominated. The redifferentiation of chondrocytes, characterized by the expression of type II collagen, was only found in low amounts in the cell-DBM constructs. Furthermore, caspase 3, a marker for apoptosis, was detected in the chondrocyte-DBM constructs. In another experimental setting, the vitality of chondrocytes as related to culture time and the amount of DBM was analyzed with the BrdU assay. Higher amounts of DBM tended to result in significantly higher proliferation rates of the cells within the first 48 h. After 96 h, the vitality decreased in a dose-dependent fashion. Here, we describe the advanced biospecimen biobanking monitoring system in the development and implementation of chondrocyte and cartilage tissue banking informatics tools for intra and inter-bioinstitutional translational autologous advanced cell therapy, cryopreservation and medicine research.

Methods

Data managers review the medical records to collect and continuously update information for the 145 clinical, pathological and inventorial CDEs that the Resource maintains for each case. An Access-based data entry tool provides de-identification and a standard communication mechanism between each group and a central CPCTR database. Standardized automated quality control audits have been implemented. Centrally, an Oracle database has web interfaces allowing multiple user-types, including the general public, to mine de-identified information from all of the sites with three levels of specificity and granularity as well as to request tissues through a formal letter of intent.

Results

Since July 2003, CPCTR has offered over 6,000 cases (38,000 blocks) of highly characterized prostate cancer biospecimens, including several tissue microarrays (TMA). The Resource developed a website with interfaces for the general public as well as researchers and internal members. These user groups have utilized the web-tools for public query of summary data on the cases that were available, to prepare requests, and to receive tissues. As of December 2005, the Resource received over 130 tissue requests, of which 45 have been reviewed, approved and filled. Additionally, the Resource implemented the TMA Data Exchange Specification in its TMA program and created a computer program for calculating PSA recurrence.

Conclusion

Building an advanced biospecimen biobanking monitoring system in the development and implementation of chondrocyte and cartilage tissue banking informatics tools for intra and inter-bioinstitutional translational autologous advanced cell therapy, cryopreservation and medicine research biorepository infrastructure that meets today’s research needs involves time and input of many individuals from diverse disciplines. The present study combined for the first time the method of seeding chondrocyte-macroaggregates in DBM for the purpose of cartilage tissue engineering to an advanced biospecimen biobanking monitoring system in the development and implementation of chondrocyte and cartilage tissue banking informatics tools for intra and inter-bioinstitutional translational autologous advanced cell therapy, cryopreservation and medicine research can provide the proof of concept of chondrocyte-macroaggregates with DBM as an interesting method for the tissue engineering of cartilagelarge volumes of carefully annotated prostate tissue for research initiatives such as Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs) and for biomarker validation studies and its experience can help development of collaborative, large scale, virtual tissue banks in other organ systems.