Professor of Biomedical Engineering Texas A & M University, United States
Introduction:: Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are one of the most promising stem cell types for tissue regnearion, owing to its broad availability, multi-differentiation ability, as well as immunomodulatory and regenerative properties via paracrine mechanisms. These superior properties have identified hMSCs as an ideal cell type in diverse tissue engineering applications. We have previously developed pre-vascularized hMSC sheets with long and oriented dense microvascular networks. In our recent study, we further evaluated the patency, perfusability and innate immune response toward these pre-vascularized constructs.
Materials and Methods:: The pre-vascularized hMSC constructs were subcutaneously implanted in a nude rat model for up to 28 days. At each time point, biotinylated Ulex Europaeus Agglutinin I (UEA-I) was injected into the left ventricle of the rats’ heart before euthanization, allowing UEA-I to enter the circulation to detect the anastomosis of engineered vessels. Immunofluorescence (IF) staining and histology analysis were performed on the collected tissues to examine the functional anastomosis of the prev-vascularized constructs with the host.
Results, Conclusions, and Discussions:: The subcutaneous implantation of the pre-vascularized constructs proved that the engineered vascular network remained viable and formed a functional anastomosis with host vasculature within three days of implantation. This completely biological pre-vascularized construct holds great potential to be utilized as building blocks to engineer 3D pre-vascularized tissue constructs by layering the pre-vascularized cell sheets or integrating the pre-vascularized cell sheets into engineered 3D constructs.
