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Tissue engineering

Creation of long-lasting blood vessels

Abstract

The construction of stable blood vessels is a fundamental challenge for tissue engineering in regenerative medicine. Although certain genes can be introduced into vascular cells to enhance their survival and proliferation, these manipulations may be oncogenic. We show here that a network of long-lasting blood vessels can be formed in mice by co-implantation of vascular endothelial cells and mesenchymal precursor cells, by-passing the need for risky genetic manipulations. These networks are stable and functional for one year in vivo.

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Figure 1: Morphological and functional analysis of engineered blood vessels.

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Authors

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Correspondence to Rakesh K. Jain.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Includes information on: preparation of the 3-D construct for tissue engineered blood vessels; vascular permeability measurement; and arteriolar contractility assay. (DOC 31 kb)

Supplementary Movie

3-D presentation of tissue engineered blood vessels. HUVECs and 10T1/2 cells were seeded in the 3-D constructs and implanted in the animals. EGFP-expressing HUVECs (green) and perfused blood vessels (red) were visualized by multi-photon laser-scanning microscopy (Ref. 4). At day 28, blood perfusion could be seen in all layers of the construct. Thickness of the construct is 165 µm. Image is 270 µm across. (MOV 1006 kb)

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Koike, N., Fukumura, D., Gralla, O. et al. Creation of long-lasting blood vessels. Nature 428, 138–139 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/428138a

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