Endothelial Cell-Derived Tethered Lipid Bilayers Generating Nitric Oxide for Endovascular Implantation

Engineering an endothelium-mimetic surface has been one of long-lasting topics to develop ideal cardiovascular devices. The aim of the study was to investigate the potential use of a model of lipid bilayers that not only come from membranes extracted from endothelial cells (ECs) but also embedded with a type of organoselenium lipid enabling it to catalyze the generation of nitric oxide (NO). Herein, the titanium-cloaking in lipid bilayers extracted from ECs was prepared to propose a promising idea for the development of endovascular implants. For this purpose, we synthesized and characterized a lipidic molecule containing selenium and verified enough catalytic activity for the NO generation in the presence of S-nitrosothiols (RSNO) as endogenous NO precursors. We demonstrated the fabrication process of tethered lipid bilayers, from membrane extraction to vesicle fusion, and validated the successful formation of the layer and the catalyst insertion. The resulting bilayer presented endothelium-similar properties including the NO generation and cellular interactions. The catalyst inserted into the bilayer provided an unexampled result in the release period and kinetics of NO, likely similar to the native endothelial system. Using three different cells including EC, smooth muscle cell (SMC), and macrophage, it was demonstrated that the membrane responds selectively to each cell in the manner of promotive, suppressive, and nonimmunoreactive, respectively. Taken together, the fundamental study on obtained results not only provides understanding of the kinetics of designed NO catalyst and cellular interactions of reassembled membranes but also suggests very useful data on rational design and development of many vascular implantable devices, even expandable toward to nonvascular biointerfacing devices.