Tissue-engineered fibrin-based heart valve with a tubular leaflet design

The general approach in heart valve tissue engineering is to mimic the shape of the native valve in the attempt to recreate the natural haemodynamics. In this article, we report the fabrication of the first tissue-engineered heart valve (TEHV) based on a tubular leaflet design, where the function of the leaflets of semilunar heart valves is performed by a simple tubular construct sutured along a circumferential line at the root and at three single points at the sinotubular junction. The tubular design is a recent development in pericardial (nonviable) bioprostheses, which has attracted interest because of the simplicity of the construction and the reliability of the implantation technique. Here we push the potential of the concept further from the fabrication and material point of view to realize the tube-in-tube valve: an autologous, living HV with remodelling and growing capability, physiological haemocompatibility, simple to construct and fast to implant. We developed two different fabrication/conditioning procedures and produced fibrin-based constructs embedding cells from the ovine umbilical cord artery according to the two different approaches. Tissue formation was confirmed by histology and immunohistology. The design of the tube-in-tube foresees the possibility of using a textile coscaffold (here demonstrated with a warp-knitted mesh) to achieve enhanced mechanical properties in vision of implantation in the aortic position. The tube-in-tube represents an attractive alternative to the conventional design of TEHVs aiming at reproducing the valvular geometry.