Improvement of epoc-mediated vascularization in gelatin-based hydrogels through pore size manipulation

• Main Author: Muhammad Hamizan Abdul Samad
• Other Authors: Wang Dongan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71799
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The experiment focused on research meant to aid in the advancement of tissue engineering. It revolved around testing the effect of infusing microsphere construct on Gel-MA hydrogel. The infusion was speculated to improve the vascularisation and network diffusion of human endothelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells. The effect of the microsphere construct was measured by using a control experiment with pure gelatin and no microsphere construct addition as well as three different sizes of microsphere construct to test the effect realised from microsphere construct addition. The experiment conducted had two faces that included the in vitro experiment and in vivo experiment. In vivo experiment was conducted on immunodeficient mice to observe the extent of vascularisation realised through embedding a scaffold with cells and the Gel-MA infused with different microsphere sizes. The results obtained both on the in vitro and in vivo results showed that the use of microsphere constructs improved cell distribution and vascularisation. However, the size of the infused microsphere construct that offered the optimum vascularisation differed from in vitro to in vivo results. In vitro results suggested the most appropriate microsphere construct size to be 100-200 microsphere size while in vivo results showed that the 80-100 microsphere size had the optimum vascularisation. Hence, this indicates that by cavitary density optimization, the facilitation of the vascularization of Gel-MA constructs both in vitro and in vivo becomes more efficient. Additionally, such highly-porous Gel-MA constructs have vast potentiality in becoming promising scaffolds in vascularized tissue constructs developments.