Recreating Physiological Environments In Vitro: Design Rules for Microfluidic‐Based Vascularized Tissue Constructs

Abstract

Vascularization of engineered tissue constructs remains one of the greatest unmet challenges to mimicking the native tissue microenvironment in vitro. The main obstacle is recapitulating the complexity of the physiological environment while providing simplicity in operation and manipulation of the model. Microfluidic technology has emerged as a promising tool that enables perfusion of the tissue constructs through engineered vasculatures and precise control of the vascular microenvironment cues in vitro. The tunable microenvironment includes i) biochemical cues such as coculture, supporting matrix, and growth factors and ii) engineering aspects such as vasculature engineering methods, fluid flow, and shear stress. In this systematic review, the design considerations of the microfluidic‐based in vitro model are discussed, with an emphasis on microenvironment control to enhance the development of next‐generation vascularized engineered tissues.

Engineering New Microvascular Networks On‐Chip: Ingredients, Assembly, and Best Practices

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Translational Roadmap for the Organs-on-a-Chip Industry toward Broad Adoption

“…Vascularization of OOAC models offers a way to increase physiological relevance via a specific barrier and transport functionalities, as well as interstitial flow modeling, specialized cell-cell interactions, metastatic models, inflammatory models, and drug-or chemical-mediated toxicity models. Various forms of vascularization have been implemented thus far-from separate endothelial cell-lined fluidic supply channels over bioprinted models to specialized angiogenesis chips [43,[70][71][72][73]. Herland et al [19] recently demonstrated quantitative pharmacokinetic responses to orally administered nicotine and intravenously injected cisplatin inside their interconnected, vascularized organ chips that had been perfused using a common blood surrogate [19].…”

The Shape and Function of Solid Fascias Depend on the Presence of Liquid Fascias

“…We know that biotensegrity bases its foundations on the previous architectural model, with rigid and pre-stressed structures (bones and muscles); we know that the cell has been equated with this biological vision but, body fluids have not been taken into sufficient consideration [3]. We know that the presence of fluids is fundamental for the growth and survival of cells, as well as for the maintenance of the shape and function of tissues and organs [37][38][39]. In addition, the temperature itself within the different cellular fluid compartments is not homogeneous [40].…”