Figure 1

Fabrication of the cell sheets. Temperature-responsive culture dishes on which chondrocytes had been cultured were removed from the incubator when the cells reached confluence and were let stand at about 25°C for 30 min (A). After the culture medium was removed, a polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membrane was put onto the dish (B), and the sheet was detached gently (C). The chondrocyte sheets could then be easily fabricated into multilayered constructs with the help of the PVDF and without the need for enzyme digestion (D).