"Tissue Engineered Blood Vessel Mimics to Assess the Endothelialization of Intravascular Stents"
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Abstract: The implantation of an intravascular stent leads to a cascade of responses including the eventual formation of an endothelial cell lining on the intimal surface of the device.  This endothelialization is a key component of vascular healing, and provides an anti-thrombogenic cellular lining that can be crucial to the success of the device.  In order to assess the endothelial cell response to different stent types, it is possible to use tissue-engineered three dimensional blood vessel mimics as a preclinical testing environment.  These vessel mimics are created by pressure-sodding human microvascular endothelial cells onto the lumen of 4mm i.d. ePTFE tubular constructs.  The resulting vessels mimic the structure of a native blood vessel with a sub-endothelial neomedia and a luminal monolayer of endothelial cells.  Vessels are cultivated in individual bioreactor systems under flow, providing a high-throughput model for assessing endothelial cell response.  Following deployment of different stent types or cultivation under varying flow conditions, endothelial cell coverage of the device surfaces can be evaluated by scanning electron microscopy, fluorescent nuclear staining, or optical coherence tomography.