Real-time, noninvasive optical coherence tomography of cross-sectional living cell-sheets in vitro and in vivo

Cell sheet technology has a history of application in regenerating various tissues, having successfully completed several clinical trials using autologous cell sheets. Tomographic analysis of living cell sheets is an important tool in the field of cell sheet-based regenerative medicine and tissue engineering to analyze the inner structure of layered living cells. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is commonly used in ophthalmology to noninvasively analyze cross-sections of target tissues at high resolution. This study used OCT to conduct real-time, noninvasive analysis of living cell sheet cross sections. OCT showed the internal structure of cell sheets in tomographic images synthesized with backscatter signals from inside the living cell sheet without invasion or damage. OCT observations were used to analyze the static and dynamic behaviors of living cell sheets in vitro and in vivo including (1) the harvesting process of a C2C12 mouse skeletal myoblast sheet from a temperature-responsive culture surface; (2) cell-sheet adhesion onto various surfaces including a culture surface, a synthetic rubber glove, and the dorsal subcutaneous tissue of rats; and (3) the real-time propagation of beating rat cardiac cells within cardiac cell sheets. This study showed that OCT technology is a powerful tool in the field of cell sheet-based regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.