A Novel Tubular Scaffold for Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering

Abstract

We have developed a counter rotating cone extrusion device to produce the next generation of three-dimensional collagen scaffold for tissue engineering. The device can produce a continuously varying fibril angle from the lumen to the outside of a 5-mm-diameter collagen tube, similar to the pattern of heart muscle cells in the intact heart. Our scaffold is a novel, oriented, type I collagen, tubular scaffold. We selected collagen because we believe there are important signals from the collagen both geometrically and biochemically that elicit the in vivo -like phenotypic response from the cardiomyocytes. We have shown that cardiomyocytes can be cultured in these tubes and resemble an in vivo phenotype. This new model system will provide important information leading to the design and construction of a functional, biologically based assist device.

Pulsatile Myocardial Tubes Fabricated With Cell Sheet Engineering

“…These results demonstrate the next step of myocardial tissue reconstruction and a shift toward the fabrication of independently functioning cardiac structures, with the possibility of acting as tissue engineered cardiac assist devices. Although some efforts have been reported for the in vitro fabrication of myocardial tubes, 20 our results are the first report confirming the in vivo function of bioengineered myocardial tubes that can produce inner graft pressures and have the potential for circulatory support.…”

Cardiac Tissue Engineering

“…Whereas the tissue patch approach seems already ambitious with numerous biological, logistic, and regulatory hurdles, the field also works on the generation of biological assist devices [41][42][43] or even entire artificial hearts on the basis of decellularized hearts. 15 On the other side of the spectrum, tissue engineering in situ follows the idea that injection of biomimetic scaffolds into an injured heart stimulates endogenous repair processes.…”

“…Finally, tissues can be better quality-controlled before implantation, and living muscle tissue should provide direct and definite support of the injured heart, whereas mechanisms of cell therapy seem largely independent of the addition of new contractile mass. Importantly, the potential advantages of the tissue engineering approach have not been proven yet in a direct and systematic head-to-head comparison with cell therapy, and logistics are certainly much more complex.Whereas the tissue patch approach seems already ambitious with numerous biological, logistic, and regulatory hurdles, the field also works on the generation of biological assist devices [41][42][43] or even entire artificial hearts on the basis of decellularized hearts. 15 On the other side of the spectrum, tissue engineering in situ follows the idea that injection of biomimetic scaffolds into an injured heart stimulates endogenous repair processes.…”

A Novel Adult Marrow Stromal Stem Cell Based 3-D Postnatal De Novo Vasculogenesis for Vascular Tissue Engineering

“…The tubes were sterilized using gamma radiation 1200 Gy followed by Stratalinker UV crosslinker 1800 (Stratagene) and then placed in Mosconas's solution (in mM: 136.8 NaCl, 28.6 KCl, 11.9 NaHCO 3 , 9.4 glucose, 0.08 NaH 2 PO 4 , pH 7.4) (Sigma-Aldrich) containing 1 µl/ml gentamicin (Sigma-Aldrich) and incubated in 5% CO 2 at 37°C until cellular seeding (Valarmathi et al, 2010). The rationale for the particular orientation of collagen fiber was based on our previous work on cardiovascular tissue engineering (Yost et al, 2004). When proepicardial organ cells (PECs) were seeded onto this scaffold, they underwent maturation and differentiation and produced elongated vessel-like structures reminiscent of in vivo-like phenotype (Valarmathi et al, 2008).…”