Hypothermic Storage of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells and Their Hydrogel Constructs

Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) have great potential in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and clinical applications. There is an ever-increasing demand to provide living HUVECs and HUVECs-hydrogel constructs to end users when needed in cell-based therapy and clinical applications. However, current methods to provide living cells and their constructs are mainly continuous culture and cryopreservation, which are high-cost, labor-intensive, time-consuming and inflexible. The research about hypothermic storage of HUVECs and their hydrogel constructs is still limited. Here, we studied the cell survival of HUVECs without encapsulation (W/O Encap) or with encapsulation (alginate, alginate with carboxymethyl chitosan [CMCH]) at 4°C and 25°C during 7 days, respectively. Also, we explored the optimal CMCH concentration for hypothermic storage, which is 0.5% (w/v) at 4°C and 25°C. Moreover, we evaluated the cell attachment after hypothermic storage. Our results enable the hypothermic storage of HUVECs and HUVEC-hydrogel constructs, and facilitate their application in tissue engineering and clinical medicine.