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ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #103398
Title: FUNCTIONAL ARTERIES GROWN IN VITRO

Author
item NIKLASSON, L - DUKE UNIVERSITY
item GAO, G - CASE WESTERN RESERVE U
item ABBOTT, W - MASSACHUSETTS GEN HOSP
item Hirschi, Karen
item HOUSER, S - MASSACHUSSETTS GEN HOSP
item MARINI, R - MASSACHUSETTS INST TECH
item LANGER, R - MASSACHUSETTS INST TECH

Submitted to: Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/18/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Cardiovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease associated with diabetes are major causes of death in the United States. A common treatment for patients with these conditions is surgery to replace blocked blood vessels with healthy blood vessels from elsewhere in the patient's body, to reestablish adequate blood supply to critical organs like the brain. However, often it is impossible to find an appropriate vessel that is not similarly blocked, and artificial grafts often fail. Our goal was to use a subject's own cells to create a blood vessel graft, to offset the possibility of rejection. We employed an adult pig as a model for the human being. We removed a small blood vessel from the pig and isolated the blood vessel's two cell types. We arranged the smooth muscle cells in the tube- like shape of a blood vessel, using a polymer mold, which degraded as the cells grew over 8 weeks. We then lined the inside of the tube with endothelial cells to create a physically correct blood vessel. We used vitamin C, copper and amino acids to strengthen the graft, then implanted it into an artery in a pig's hind limb. Tests performed over the next 4 weeks proved the graft remained in place, unblocked and functional. Thus, we created the first functioning autologous graft of a blood vessel, using cells from an animal to "grow" a vessel that was successfully implanted into the same animal. These findings have tremendous potential for application in humans with diseases involving blocked blood vessels.

Technical Abstract: A tissue engineering approach was developed to produce arbitrary lengths of vascular graft material from smooth muscle and endothelial cells that were derived from a biopsy of bovine vascular tissue. Vessels cultured under pulsatile conditions had rupture strengths greater than 2000 millimeters of mercury, suture retention strengths of up to 90 grams, and collagen contents of up to 50 percent. Cultured vessels also showed contractile responses to pharmacological agents and contained smooth muscle cells that displayed markers of differentiation such as calponin and myosin heavy chains. Tissue-engineered arteries were implanted in miniature swine, with patency documented up to 24 days by digital angiography.