Vascularization – The Conduit to Viable Engineered Tissues

Rapid vascularization of tissue-engineered vascular grafts in vivo by endothelial cells in co-culture with smooth muscle cells

“…Unfortunately, this approach does little to promote the process of TEVG angiogenesis, which determines graft perfusion and host integration. At present, the two conventional method of spontaneously inducing angiogenesis inside tissue-engineered constructs are the application of various angiogenic factors and the co-culturing of ECs with target tissue cells [22]. Although the use of angiogenic factors, such as VEGF or basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), is an attractive and widely used approach to inducing controlled angiogenesis, most factors have shorter effective half-lives in vivo.…”

Vascularization strategies of engineered tissues and their application in cardiac regeneration

“…As discussed above, different strategies have been pursued to promote blood perfusion in cardiac grafts, such as co-implantation of endothelial cells and/or addition of angiogenic factors [113][114][115][116][117][118]. Although these approaches can lead to the successful formation of vessels within implanted grafts, the drawback is that the time required for new vessels to form and start carrying blood [6,[119][120][121][122] is higher than the rate at which the death of A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T…”

Mechanical regulation of vascular network formation in engineered matrices

“…Our group and others have focused on in-vitro prevascularization of engineered tissues by co-culturing endothelial cells and stromal cells to generate extensive vessel networks [11,12]. The stromal cells act as pericytes that provide physical cues and secrete angiogenic factors that promote vessel formation, maturation and stabilization [13]. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of the multi-cellular technique in vascularization of pancreatic [14], cardiac [15,16] and skeletal muscle tissues [17].…”