Image Analysis of Endothelial Microstructure and Endothelial Cell Dimensions of Human Arteries – A Preliminary Study

✍ Scribed by Bora Garipcan; Stefan Maenz; Tam Pham; Utz Settmacher; Klaus D. Jandt; Jürgen Zanow; Jörg Bossert

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 472 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1438-1656
• DOI: 10.1002/adem.201080076

✦ Synopsis

The inner lining of the cardiovascular system consists of a continuous layer of cells, the blood vessel endothelium. The endothelium is, under normal circumstances, the only tissue that blood comes in contact with. The details of its unique blood compatibility are, however, to date still an enigma. It seems, nevertheless, clear that the structure of the endothelial cells and their surface biochemistry and functionality are of critical importance for the vessels' blood compatibility and superior hemodynamic properties. The ideal artificial vascular graft would mimic these properties of the endothelium to accomplish excellent biocompatibility. A logical first step in designing such a vascular graft is the analysis of the native endothelial structure and determination of the endothelial cell dimensions. While there are numerous cross sectional light microscopy images of the endothelium it is surprising that in the current cardiovascular scientific literature relatively few high-quality topview high-resolution micrographs of the human arterial endothelium are available. In most previous studies, animal blood vessel endothelial structure was investigated. These previous studies have provided important general information on the dimension of endothelial cells; however, cell dimension measurements were obtained only