An Ex Vivo Vessel Injury Model to Study Remodeling

Invasive coronary interventions can fail due to intimal hyperplasia and restenosis. Endothelial cell (EC) seeding to the vessel lumen, accelerating re-endothelialization, or local release of mTOR pathway inhibitors have helped reduce intimal hyperplasia after vessel injury. While animal models are powerful tools, they are complex and expensive, and not always reflective of human physiology. Therefore, we developed an in vitro 3D vascular model validating previous in vivo animal models and utilizing isolated human arteries to study vascular remodeling after injury.

We utilized a bioreactor that enables the control of intramural pressure and shear stress in vessel conduits to investigate the vascular response in both rat and human arteries to intraluminal injury.

Culturing rat aorta segments in vitro, we show that vigorous removal of luminal ECs results in vessel injury, causing medial proliferation by Day-4 and neointima formation, with the observation of SCA1⁺ cells (stem cell antigen-1) in the intima by Day-7, in the absence of flow. Conversely, when endothelial-denuded rat aortae and human umbilical arteries were subjected to arterial shear stress, pre-seeding with human umbilical ECs decreased the number and proliferation of smooth muscle cell (SMC) significantly in the media of both rat and human vessels.

Our bioreactor system provides a novel platform for correlating ex vivo findings with vascular outcomes in vivo. The present in vitro human arterial injury model can be helpful in the study of EC-SMC interactions and vascular remodeling, by allowing for the separation of mechanical, cellular, and soluble factors.