Page 485 - IJB-10-1

International

Journal of Bioprinting

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Successful endothelial monolayer formation on

melt electrowritten scaffolds under dynamic
conditions to mimic tunica intima

Sebastian Loewner , Sebastian Heene , Fabian Cholewa , Henrik Heymann ,
2
2
1
1
Holger Blume , and Cornelia Blume 1*
2
1 Institute of Technical Chemistry, Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany
2 Institute of Microelectronic Systems, Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Lower Saxony,
Germany

Abstract
The lack of transplantable tissues and organs as well as the limitations of synthetic
implants highlight the need for tissue-engineered constructs to obtain safe, long-
lasting, and limitless tissue replacements. Scaffolds for cardiovascular applications,
such as for a tissue-engineered vascular graft (TEVG), are thus highly required. For
TEVGs, tubular scaffolds should support the formation of confluent endothelial
layers in particular under dynamic conditions to prevent thrombosis and maintain
hemostasis. For that purpose, a porous and highly diffusible scaffold structure is
necessary to allow optimal cell adhesion as well as oxygen and nutrient exchange
with the surrounding tissue. Here, we present a three-dimensional-printed scaffold
*Corresponding author:
Cornelia Blume made by a combination of fused deposition modeling (FDM) and melt electrowriting
(blume@iftc.uni-hannover.de) (MEW) out of polycaprolactone that enables monolayer formation and alignment of
Citation: Loewner S, Heene endothelial cells in the direction of medium flow under a shear stress of up to 10 dyn
-2
S, Cholewa F, Heymann H, cm . Pore size and coating with human fibrin were optimized to enable confluent
Blume H, Blume C. Successful endothelial layers on the printed scaffold structures. Cell orientation and shape
endothelial monolayer formation
on melt electrowritten scaffolds analysis showed a characteristic alignment and elongation of the tested endothelial
under dynamic conditions to cells with the direction of flow after dynamic cultivation. In contrast, melt electrospun
mimic tunica intima. Int J Bioprint. scaffolds based on the same CAD design under comparable printing and cultivation
2024;10(1):1111.
doi: 10.36922/ijb.1111 conditions were not sufficient to form gapless cell layers. Thus, the new scaffold
fabricated by MEW/FDM approach appears most suitable for TEVGs as a template for
Received: June 20, 2023 the innermost vascular wall layer, the tunica intima.
Accepted: August 14, 2023
Published Online: September 11,
2023
Keywords: Scaffold; Tissue engineering; Melt electrowriting; Dynamic cultivation;
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). Endothelium
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, 1. Introduction
provided the original work is
properly cited. Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death globally, with approximately
1
Publisher’s Note: AccScience 17.9 million deaths each year. While allogenic transplantations and synthetic grafts are
Publishing remains neutral with available, they come with limitations. Synthetic grafts can increase the risk of thrombosis
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional and stenosis, especially in smaller-diameter grafts, as well as necessitate anti-coagulants.
affiliations. Furthermore, allogenic vascular grafts, e.g., from post-mortem donors, necessitate the

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 477 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijb.1111