Human Umbilical Versus Coronary Cell Sources for Tissue-Engineered Blood Vessel Mimics

Abstract

Along with the advancement of tissue engineering methods to produce implantable constructs has come the development of methods to create tissue-engineered constructs for in vitro preclinical testing of drugs, devices, and other therapeutics. Blood vessel mimics (BVMs) are examples of tissue-engineered in vitro models that have been created for the assessment of endothelial cell responses to implanted devices and intravascular imaging modalities. These BVMs could also serve as preclinical models for early-stage pharmaceutical screening. The current work aimed to build on previous BVM capabilities in three ways: by establishing and documenting a method to create dual-layer BVMs with smooth muscle and endothelial cells, by utilizing and comparing human umbilical and human coronary sources of cells, and by evaluating the ability of BVMs created with the new methods to withstand device implantation. In both umbilical and coronary BVMs, histology and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed the presence of a confluent cell layer within the lumen of the scaffold. After device deployment, SEM revealed that the cellular lining remained intact, and in umbilical vessels, some evidence of an early endothelial response was observed. The data presented here support the use of the documented methods to create dual-layer BVMs from a variety of cell sources.