Hydrogel Coating Optimization to Augment Engineered Soft Tissue Mechanics in Tissue-Engineered Blood Vessels

Tissue engineering has the advantage of replicating soft tissue mechanics to better simulate and integrate into native soft tissue. However, soft tissue engineering has been fraught with issues of insufficient tissue strength to withstand physiological mechanical requirements. This factor is due to the lack of strength inherent in cell-only constructs and in the biomaterials used for soft tissue engineering and limited extracellular matrix (ECM) production possible in cell culture. To address this issue, we explored the use of an ECM-based hydrogel coating to serve as an adhesive tool, as demonstrated in vascular tissue engineering. The efficacy of cells to supplement mechanical strength in the coating was explored. Specifically, selected coatings were applied to an engineered artery tunica adventitia to accurately test their properties in a natural tissue support structure. Multiple iterations of three primary hydrogels with and without cells were tested: fibrin, collagen, and gelatin hydrogels with and without fibroblasts. The effectiveness of a natural crosslinker to further stabilize and strengthen the hydrogels was investigated, namely genipin extracted from the gardenia fruit. We found that gelatin crosslinked with genipin alone exhibited the highest tensile strength; however, fibrin gel supported cell viability the most. Overall, fibrin gel coating without genipin was deemed optimal for its balance in increasing mechanical strength while still supporting cell viability and was used in the final mechanical and hydrodynamic testing assessments. Engineered vessels coated in fibrin hydrogel with cells resulted in the highest tensile strength of all hydrogel-coated groups after 14 d in culture, demonstrating a tensile strength of 11.9 ± 2.91 kPa, compared to 5.67 ± 1.37 kPa for the next highest collagen hydrogel group. The effect of the fibrin hydrogel coating on burst pressure was tested on our strongest vessels composed of human aortic smooth muscle cells. A significant increase from our previously reported burst pressure of 51.3 ± 2.19 mmHg to 229 ± 23.8 mmHg was observed; however, more work is needed to render these vessels compliant with mechanical and biological criteria for blood vessel substitutes.