An advanced culture system to investigate electrospun graft biomechanisms for vascular tissue engineering

Vascular tissue engineering aims to regenerate vessels “at the target site” using cell-free synthetic scaffolds supporting endogenous regeneration. This approach aims to harness the natural wound healing process. This physiological response involves a complex series of events that could lead to detrimental outcomes, such as fibrosis and chronic inflammation. A critical aspect impairing the success of endogenous regeneration is the fine balance between functional neo-tissue formation, haemodynamic stimuli, and scaffold degradation. With the aim of investigating the biomechanisms at the basis of the interplay among these factors, we have developed an advanced in vitro culture system able to mimic in vivo-like physiological wall shear stress and pulsatile pressure. In the present work, we performed first biological tests to validate the device functionalities, in particular cell seeding and conditioning of a vascular graft. This novel culture system will make possible to achieve fundamental insight concerning cell-graft interaction, synthetic scaffold colonization, and their response to haemodynamic cues.