Abstract
Vascular stenosis is always associated with hemodynamic changes, especially shear stress alterations. Herein, bi-conical shaped microvessels were developed through flexibly and precisely controlled templated methods for hydrogel blood-vessel-like microchip. The blood-vessel-like microvessels demonstrated tunable dimensions, perfusable ability, and good cytocompatibility. The microchips showed blood-vessel-like lumens through fine embeddedness of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) on the interior surface of hydrogel microchannels, which closely reproduced the morphology and functions of human blood vessels. In the gradual narrowing region of bi-conical shape, fluid flow generated wall shear stress, which caused cell morphology variations. Wall shear rates at the gradual narrowing region were simulated by FLUENT software. The results showed that our microchannels qualified for performance as a vascular stenosis-like model in evaluating blood hydrodynamics. In general, our blood-vessel-on-a-chip could offer potential applications in the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of arterial thrombosis.
Highlights
Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and peripheral artery diseases are potentially life-threatening risks that affect a significant percentage of the population
The gradual narrowing region of coaxial bi-conical shape was taken as a vascular stenosis-like model
We developed a bi-conical gelatin blood-vessel-like microchip by using a convenient, economical, and easy-to-manufacture method for vascular stenosis simulation by using a tapered capillary tube as a template
Summary
Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and peripheral artery diseases are potentially life-threatening risks that affect a significant percentage of the population. Micro-engineered models, especially microfluidic organs-on-chips, could recapitulate aspects of the three-dimensional (3D) structure and microenvironment of human physiology with defined structure at miniature scale [14,15]. They provide an alternative in vitro platform for analyzing vascular thrombosis and are valuable complementary to the in vivo studies, especially for computational simulation of blood hemodynamics [13,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Micro-engineered channels with circular cross-sections and stenosis geometries would be preferable alternatives in modeling blood vessels for the in vitro analysis of arterial thrombosis
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