Characterization of gel for blood vessel tissue engineering application

• Main Author: Ng, Jian Hui.
• Other Authors: Tan Lay Poh
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials::Biomaterials
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44767
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Currently, the only successful tissue engineering application is only limited to skin application. This is due to limited oxygen and nutrients supply after transplantation cause by insufficient vascularization which hinders the proliferation of cells as diffusion limit of oxygen in the tissue is restricted to only between 100-200um. Implant tissue greater than this range will require vascularization within tissue to enhance its survivability. To overcome this problem, we need to improve on the angiogenic process. This can be done by improving on scaffold design, injecting angiogenic fators and adopting in vitro prevascularization. Thus this leads to the main objective of our research. Alginate and collagen hydrogel were used to encapsulate HUVECs. By varying the concentrations to tune different modulus, injecting angiogenic factors, we investigated on how it affect and promote capillary network formation. In our research, cells were encapsulated in 1.5, 2.0 and 3.0mg/ml collagen hydrogel, 7.5, 10 and 15mg/ml alginate hydrogel respectively. After 7 days of culturing, the hydrogels were viewed under microscope to observe their morphology. We found out that among alginate and collagen hydrogel respectively, 10mg/ml alginate hydrogel and 1.5mg/ml collagen hydrogel produced the longest and well connected capillary network with the most branching.