• Online Features  This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (9)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Cardiovascular System  • Surgery  • Surgical Interventions  • Cardiovascular/ Cardiothoracic Surgery  • Surgical Physiology  • Surgical Physiology, Other  • Transplantation  • Transplantation, Other  • Cardiovascular Disease/ Myocardial Infarction  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Preliminary Findings

Gregory N. Nelson, BS; Tamar Mirensky, MD; Matthew P. Brennan, MD; Jason D. Roh, BA; Tai Yi, MD; Yinong Wang, MD; Christopher K. Breuer, MD

Arch Surg. 2008;143(5):488-494.

Hypothesis  The immunodeficient (severe combined immunodeficiency beige [SCID/bg]) mouse model provides a useful model for investigating vascular neotissue formation in human tissue–engineered arterial conduits (TEAC).

Design  Human aortic smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells were statically seeded on porous biodegradable polymeric scaffolds for vascular tissue engineering. These 2-cell tissue-engineered vascular conduits were implanted into immunodeficient female mice as aortic interposition grafts. Grafts were evaluated over a 30-week course to investigate their patency and structure.

Setting  In vivo animal study.

Patients  Thirteen female C.B-17 SCID/bg mice.

Intervention  The TEACs implanted as infrarenal abdominal aortic interposition grafts.

Main Outcome Measures  Selective microcomputed tomography with intra-arterial contrast revealed graft patency and structure. Histological and immunohistochemical evaluations revealed cellularity and extracellular matrix composition. Species-specific immunohistochemical evaluation determined the source of cells within TEACs.

Results  All TEACs were patent without evidence of thrombosis or rupture over the 30-week course. Histological and immunohistochemical evaluation revealed a von Willebrand factor–positive luminal monolayer surrounded by concentric collagen-rich layers of -smooth muscle actin–positive cells.

Conclusions  The SCID/bg mouse is a useful model for investigating vascular neotissue formation in human TEACs. We see evidence that these grafts remain patent while developing into vascular neotissue histologically similar to native aorta. This chimeric animal model also enables determination of seeded cell retention, providing insight into cellular mechanisms underlying neotissue formation.

Author Affiliations: Departments of Surgery (Messrs Nelson and Roh and Drs Mirensky, Brennan, Yi, Wang, and Breuer), Radiology (Dr Brennan), and Pathology (Dr Wang), and the Interdepartmental Program in Vascular Biology and Therapeutics (Messrs Nelson and Roh and Drs Mirensky, Brennan, Yi, and Breuer), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.

CiteULike    Connotea    Delicious    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Determining the fate of seeded cells in venous tissue-engineered vascular grafts using serial MRI
Harrington et al.
FASEB J. 2011;25:4150-4161.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

A critical role for macrophages in neovessel formation and the development of stenosis in tissue-engineered vascular grafts
Hibino et al.
FASEB J. 2011;25:4253-4263.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT