Functional Imaging for Regenerative Medicine and Tissue-Engineered Constructs: Tracking Vascularization of...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Regenerative Medicine
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Tissue-engineered small intestine (TESI) requires omental implantation for vascularization.
• Current methods lack non-invasive monitoring for vascular maturity, delaying optimal surgical timing.
• Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) offers potential for real-time vascular assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate PAI's ability to monitor vascular maturity in TESI scaffolds.
• To correlate PAI findings with histological and gross vascularization assessments.
• To determine PAI's utility in guiding TESI clinical translation.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of tubular TESI scaffolds using electrospinning.
• Implantation of scaffolds in rat omentum for 1 and 2 months.
• Non-invasive imaging using PAI to quantify tissue oxygenation and hemoglobin concentration.

Main Results:

• PAI successfully detected regional and temporal changes in vascularization.
• The top scaffold wall showed superior vascular maturity compared to the bottom wall.
• PAI results correlated well with gross observations and histological endothelial cell density.

Conclusions:

• PAI is a viable tool for non-invasively assessing vascular maturity in abdominal tissue engineering constructs.
• This imaging modality can inform surgical timing for TESI procedures.
• PAI facilitates pre-clinical development and clinical translation of TESI.