Fibrin gel enhanced trilayer structure in cell‐cultured constructs

Abstract

Efficient cell seeding and subsequent support from a substrate ensure optimal cell growth and neotissue development during tissue engineering, including heart valve tissue engineering. Fibrin gel as a cell carrier may provide high cell seeding efficiency and adhesion property, improved cellular interaction, and structural support to enhance cellular growth in trilayer polycaprolactone (PCL) substrates that mimic the structure of native heart valve leaflets. This cell carrier gel coupled with a trilayer PCL substrate may enable the production of native-like cell-cultured leaflet constructs suitable for heart valve tissue engineering. In this study, we seeded valvular interstitial cells onto trilayer PCL substrates with fibrin gel as a cell carrier and cultured them for 1 month in vitro to determine if this gel can improve cell proliferation and production of extracellular matrix within the trilayer cell-cultured constructs. We observed that the fibrin gel enhanced cellular proliferation, their vimentin expression, and collagen and glycosaminoglycan production, leading to improved structure and mechanical properties of the developing PCL cell-cultured constructs. Fibrin gel as a cell carrier significantly improved the orientations of the cells and their produced tissue materials within trilayer PCL substrates that mimic the structure of native heart valve leaflets and, thus, may be highly beneficial for developing functional tissue-engineered leaflet constructs.

Influence of Substrate Structure and Associated Properties on Endothelial Cell Behavior in the Context of Behaviors Associated with Laminar Flow Conditions

“…The tensile properties of the substrates (n = 5 of each type) were characterized using a tensile tester (Test Resources) at a 0.01 N preload and head rate of 5 mm/min with a 50 N load cell using a previously described protocol. 34 Briefly, the substrates were cut into rectangular shapes measuring 10 × 2 mm, with an approximate thickness of 300 μm. The substrates were mounted into ridged paper supports with a 5.5 mm × 5.5 mm window and loaded into the tensile tester's wedge grip clamps.…”