2014 Volume No 28 – pages 51-67
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Title: Cellular strategies to promote vascularisation in tissue engineering applications |
Author: R Costa-Almeida, PL Granja, R Soares, SG Guerreiro |
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Address: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal |
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E-mail: raqsoa at med.up.pt |
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Key Words: Angiogenesis, cellular therapies, co-culture models, endothelial progenitor cells, regeneration. |
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Publication date: July 22nd 2014 |
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Abstract: Vascularisation is considered to be one of the greatest challenges in tissue engineering. Different strategies exist but cell-based approaches have emerged as a promising therapy to achieve successful vascularisation. The use of endothelial cells to engineer vascularised tissues has been extensively investigated. This field of research has evolved with the discovery of endothelial progenitor cells, a subpopulation with a high regenerative potential. However, the survival of endothelial cell populations alone seems to be impaired. To overcome this problem, co-culture systems, involving supporting cells, like mural cells, fibroblasts, or more tissue-specific cells have been developed. Endothelial cells benefit from the extracellular matrix components and growth factors produced by the supporting cells, which results in neovessel stabilisation and maturation. The use of endothelial progenitor cells in co-culture systems appears to be a promising strategy to promote vascularisation in approaches of increasing complexity. Herein, the authors provide an overview of the cellular strategies that can be used for increasing vascularisation in tissue engineering and regeneration. |
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Article download: Pages
51-67 (PDF file) |
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