Tissue engineering a blood vessel: Regulation of vascular biology by mechanical stresses

✍ Scribed by Thierry Ziegler; Robert M. Nerem

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 616 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0730-2312
• DOI: 10.1002/jcb.240560215

✦ Synopsis

Important to the tissue engineering of a substitute blood vessel is an understanding of those factors which regulate vascular biology. A major factor in this regulation is the mechanical environment imposed by the hernodynamics of the vascular system. In this the vascular endothelium plays a critical role, and over the past two decades much has been learned about the influence of hemodynamics on vascular endothelial biology, to a large degree using cell culture to study the effects of flow and cyclic stretch. In our laboratory, such studies are now being extended through the development of a model of the arterial wall involving the co-culture of endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells. The development of such a model and its use in the study of hemodynamic effects represents necessary steps in the evolution of approaches to tissue engineering a blood vessel.