Tissue-Engineered Tubular Heart Valves Combining a Novel Precontraction Phase with the Self-Assembly Method
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- 作者：Maxime Picard-Deland ; Jean Ruel ; Todd Galbraith…
- 关键词：Tissue engineering ; Aortic valve ; Pulmonary valve ; Fibroblast contraction ; Pulsed ; flow bioreactor
- 刊名：Annals of Biomedical Engineering
- 出版年：2017
- 出版时间：February 2017
- 年：2017
- 卷：45
- 期：2
- 页码：427-438
- 全文大小：
- 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
- 刊物主题：Biomedicine, general; Biomedical Engineering; Biological and Medical Physics, Biophysics; Classical Mechanics; Biochemistry, general;
- 出版者：Springer US
- ISSN：1573-9686
- 卷排序：45
文摘
Recently, the tubular shape has been suggested as an effective geometry for tissue-engineered heart valves, allowing easy fabrication, fast implantation, and a minimal crimped footprint from a transcatheter delivery perspective. This simple design is well suited for the self-assembly method, with which the only support for the cells is the extracellular matrix they produce, allowing the tissue to be completely free from exogenous materials during its entire fabrication process. Tubular constructs were produced by rolling self-assembled human fibroblast sheets on plastic mandrels. After maturation, the tubes were transferred onto smaller diameter mandrels and allowed to contract freely. This precontraction phase thickened the tissue and prevented further contraction, while improving fusion between the self-assembled layers and aligning the cells circumferentially. When mounted in a pulsed-flow bioreactor, the valves showed good functionality with large leaflets coaptation and opening area. Although physiological aortic flow conditions were not reached, the leaflets could withstand a 1 Hz pulsed flow with a 300 mL/s peak flow rate and a 70 mmHg peak transvalvular pressure. This study shows that the self-assembly method, which has already proven its potential for the production of small diameter vascular grafts, could also be used to achieve functional tubular heart valves.