Abstract—Vascularization remains a critical requirement for the long term survival of engineered tissue constructs, especially thick ones. Such thick constructs for cardiac tissue engineering has been reported by our group and others based on decellularized porcine cardiac extracellular matrix (pcECM) that has been shown to resemble the native tissue both structurally and chemically. The network of inherent vasculature, which was largely retained within our pcECM, can be used as primers for re-endothelialization and neo-vascularization with regenerative cells. Endothelial cells alone, seeded onto the ECM, not only attached and survived but also rearranged into typical confluent monolayer with self-alignment. Sequential co-cultures of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) were shown to support the growth of both lineages on the surface and in the vasculature of reseeded pcECM. After ECM treatment with gelatin or fibronectin, cell proliferation increased significantly for both MSCs and HUVECs. Preliminary results showed that future efforts combining co-culture, treated scaffolds and dynamic culture environment may result in re-endothelialization leading to functional blood vessels in thick engineered tissue for partial cardiac replacement therapy.

Index Terms—Cardiovascular, tissue regeneration, tissue engineering, vascularization, extracellular matrix

Y. Wang is with the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000 Israel (e-mail: WANG0580@ntu.edu.sg).
T. Bronshtein, U. Sarig, F. Y. C. Boey, and S. S. Venkatraman are with the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore (e-mail: TBRONSHTEIN@ntu.edu.sg, ESarig@NTU.edu.sg, MYCBOEY@ntu.edu.sg, ASSUBBU@ntu.edu.sg).
M. Machluf is with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000 Israel (e-mail: machlufm@tx.technion.ac.il).

Cite: Yao Wang, Tomer Bronshtein, Udi Sarig, Freddy Yin Chiang Boey, Subbu S. Venkatraman, and Marcelle Machluf, "Endothelialization of Acellular Porcine ECM with Chemical Modification," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 2, no. 5, pp. 363-368, 2012.