Proanthocyanidins Promote Endothelial Cell Viability and Angiogenesis

Abstract

Botanic drugs are reportedly effective in treating ischemic conditions by improving vascular circulation. However, it has been very rare for biomaterial researchers to look into the possibility of using such products in the context of tissue regeneration. This work studied 4 botanic drugs to explore their effects on vascular endothelial cell growth. Human umbilical endothelial cells were cultured in the presence of different doses of astragalus powder extract, astragalus injection, puerarin injection, and proanthocyanidin (PAC). Among the 4 drugs, PAC showed a potent effect on cell viability and stimulated cell growth in a dose-dependent manner. In particular, the PAC under test was able to maintain a high level of cell viability/proliferation comparable with the cells supplemented with the endothelial cell growth medium, at both low and normal serum conditions. Blocking either endothelial cell growth factor receptors or epithelial cell growth factor receptors was ineffective in reducing the stimulatory effect. The PAC released from polyvinyl alcohol cryogels stimulated HUVECs proliferation. The chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane model was further used to test the angiogenicity of PAC, showing that this botanic drug was potent in stimulating vasculature development. This work therefore demonstrates for the first time that PAC is capable of upregulating endothelial cell activity and growth in vitro in the absence of growth factors and that PAC can be loaded and released from drug carriers and can stimulate angiogenesis. These findings suggest the application of PAC in angiogenesis and tissue regeneration.

Release of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol from polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels and its safe interaction with human skin fibroblasts

“…The PVA, PVA-PG, PVA-VG, and PVA-PG-VG solutions formed manipulable hydrogels after 8 freeze-thaw cycles (Figure 1A). These results follow those reported previously showing the formation of PVA hydrogels after physical (freezethaw) crosslinking (Mandal and Bostanian, 2000;Wang et al, 2022). There was no apparent difference in the shape or morphology of these hydrogels.…”

“…The plates were subjected to 8 cycles of freeze-thaw. Each cycle included incubation at −80 °C for 1 h to freeze the solution; then, the plates were moved to room temperature to thaw the solution (Wang et al, 2022). The designed hydrogels were then used for subsequent experiments.…”

Establishing Salvia miltiorrhiza-Derived Exosome-like Nanoparticles and Elucidating Their Role in Angiogenesis

“…To investigate the role of DDNs in MI/R injury, we used HUVECs to study the effects of DDNs on promoting angiogenesis in vitro. The choice of HUVECs for cellular uptake, proliferation, and migration studies is based on their relevance to angiogenesis and physiological similarity to endothelial cells in vivo [41]. We confirmed that DDNs can promote the proliferation and migration of HUVECs in vitro and increase microvessel density in MI/R mice.…”