Biomimetic human small muscular pulmonary arteries

Abstract

Changes in structure and function of small muscular arteries play a major role in the pathophysiology of pulmonary hypertension, a burgeoning public health challenge. Improved anatomically mimetic in vitro models of these microvessels are urgently needed because nonhuman vessels and previous models do not accurately recapitulate the microenvironment and architecture of the human microvascular wall. Here, we describe parallel biofabrication of photopatterned self-rolled biomimetic pulmonary arterial microvessels of tunable size and infrastructure. These microvessels feature anatomically accurate layering and patterning of aligned human smooth muscle cells, extracellular matrix, and endothelial cells and exhibit notable increases in endothelial longevity and nitric oxide production. Computational image processing yielded high-resolution 3D perspectives of cells and proteins. Our studies provide a new paradigm for engineering multicellular tissues with precise 3D spatial positioning of multiple constituents in planar moieties, providing a biomimetic platform for investigation of microvascular pathobiology in human disease.

Biofabrication of tissue engineering vascular systems

“… 192 In an effort to create pulmonary arterioles, Jin et al used a sacrificial germanium layer to seed ECs and SMC layers which were then folded into tubes with lumen. 193 EC in these microvessels produce significantly more nitric oxide (NO) than cells cultured on a flat surface.…”

Selection of different endothelialization modes and different seed cells for tissue-engineered vascular graft

“…This promotes TEVGs to achieve endothelialization in vitro. Besides, the smooth muscle layer planted in vitro can provide ECs with microenvironment and biomechanical support close to normal blood vessels, which can better help TEGVs endothelialization in vitro [ 138 ]. ECs from iPSCs have the same angiogenic effect as those derived from ESCs [ 139 ], and the endothelialization potential is very similar [ 140 ].…”

Wafer‐Scale High‐Quality Microtubular Devices Fabricated via Dry‐Etching for Optical and Microelectronic Applications

“…Notorious examples are microcylinders, [ 1,2 ] cubes, [ 3 ] and other polyhedrons, [ 4 ] which have already found applications, for instance, in electronics, [ 5–7 ] photonics, [ 8,9 ] and biology. [ 10–12 ] Self‐assembly by the roll‐up of structured thin‐film stacks into tubular “Swiss rolls” has been particularly successful in creating micromachined devices such as inductors, [ 13,14 ] capacitors, [ 15,16 ] microrobots, [ 17–19 ] and optical resonators [ 20–22 ] to only name a few. However, wet‐release techniques that are used in the fabrication of these microtubular architectures often suffer from serious stiction and damage problems due to the presence of capillary forces and aggressive reagents, resulting in limited yield, reproducibility, uniformity, and an overall deterioration of the device performance.…”