Towards a biofunctionalized vascular prosthesis: immune cell trapping via a growth factor receptor

To improve the clinical performance of vascular prostheses, which is inacceptably low for implants with small diameters (< 6 mm), biofunctionalization of synthetic implants by endothelialization has become a major, although still unreached, aim. In order to be able to recruit native endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) to luminal implant surfaces from the blood stream, we generated monoclonal antibodies against the EPC-specific vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR-2). Employing the very efficient genetic immunization strategy, > 10 000 hybridoma clones were generated. Screening with various deletion mutants of VEGFR-2, 49 highly-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) covering all seven Ig domains of VEGFR-2 were selected. mAb 9H10 was characterized in detail. Once immobilized on synthetic surfaces, mAb 9H10 allowed, within min, nearly 100-fold enrichment of VEGFR-2-expressing cells under continuous flow conditions. Cell trapping was cell-type specific and essentially not affected by competing VEGFR-2-negative cells. To exclude that the antibody would adversely modify receptor responses, four different in vitro assays were employed. Cell proliferation, angiogenic tube formation, acetylated low-density lipoprotein uptake and VEGFR-2 phosphorylation remained unaffected, suggesting that the antibody did not interfere with the receptor functioning of human umbilical vascular endothelial cells. The molecular and cellular characteristics make the selected monoclonal antibody a very promising tool for the biofunctionalization of vascular implants. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.