Using biofabricated tissue-engineered vascular systems to study cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among people 65 and older in the United States and many developed countries. Zhang et al. review several tissue-engineered vascular systems (TEVS), which can serve as grafts to treat CVD and as in vitro systems to study CVD progressions.

While tissue engineered vascular systems have been heavily studied and reviewed as grafts for vascular systems, the in vitro application of these systems has not been discussed in detail. The researchers focus on exploring the applications of TEVS to develop disease models and as drug screening platforms.

“We were surprised that TEVS could actually serve as very good platforms to model disease,” said author George Truskey.

One study, for example, used a tissue-engineered blood vessel system to model atherosclerosis and showed the system could recapitulate many aspects of the disease process, including endothelial cell activation, monocyte accumulation, foam cell formation, and the expression of proinflammatory cytokines.

TEVS offer the opportunity to create novel model systems with human cells and to address the limitations of animal models. They can also improve disease models for atherosclerosis and develop new models for hypertension and Type 2 diabetes. These models can serve as platforms to test therapies to treat cardiovascular disease.

“There is a lot we do not know about the genetics of chronic diseases,” said Truskey. “The development of TEVS could really benefit from the discoveries of novel materials and biofabrication methods. These systems could help us better understand the interplay of genetics on disease development and progression.”

Source: “Biofabrication of tissue engineering vascular systems,” by Qiao Zhang, Èlia Bosch-Rué, Román A. Pérez, and George A. Truskey, APL Bioengineering (2021). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0039628 .

This paper is part of the Biophysics of Biofabrication Collection, learn more here: https://aip.scitation.org/toc/apb/collection/10.1063/apb.2020.BOB2020.issue-1 .