The role of fibrinolysis inhibition in engineered vascular networks derived from endothelial cells and adipose-derived stem cells.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Background Co-cultures of endothelial cells with mesenchymal stem cells currently represent one of the most promising approaches in providing oxygen and nutrient supply for microvascular tissue engineering. Still, to translate this model into clinics several in vitro parameters including growth medium and scaffold degradation need to be fine-tuned. Methods We recently described the co-culture of adipose-derived stem cells with endothelial cells in fibrin, resulting in capillary formation in vitro as well as their perfusion in vivo. Here, we aimed to further characterise microvascular tube formation in fibrin by determining the role of scaffold degradation, thrombin concentration and culture conditions on vascularisation. Results We observed that inhibition of cell-mediated fibrin degradation by the commonly used inhibitor aprotinin resulted in impaired vascular network formation. Aprotinin had no effect on laminin and collagen type IV deposition or formation of tube-like structures in scaffold-free co-culture, indicating that poor vascularisation of fibrin clots is primarily caused by inhibition of plasminogen-driven fibrinolysis. Co-culture in plasminogen- and factor XIII-depleted fibrin did not result in different vascular network density compared to controls. Furthermore, we demonstrate that thrombin negatively affects vascular network density at high concentrations. However

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.