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Endothelial Cells Guided by Immobilized Gradients of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor on Porous Collagen Scaffolds

A key challenge in tissue engineering is overcoming cell death in the scaffold interior due to the limited diffusion of oxygen and nutrients therein. We hypothesized here that immobilizing a gradient of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF-165) would guide endothelial cells into the interior of the scaffold thereby enhancing angiogenesis. The protein was immobilized onto a collagen scaffold through carbodiimide chemistry by one of the three methods experimented: placing 5 µl of the solution at the center of the scaffold to create a ~2 ng/ml/mm gradient in a radial direction. D4T endothelial cells were observed to be guided by this VEGF-165 gradient deep into the center of the scaffold compared to both uniformly immobilized VEGF-165 and VEGF-free controls. We concluded that the VEGF-165 gradient scaffolds promoted the migration, and not proliferation, of cells deep into the scaffold. These gradient scaffolds provide the foundation for future in vivo tissue engineering studies.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/29595
Date25 August 2011
CreatorsOdedra, Devangbhai
ContributorsRadisic, Milica, Shoichet, Molly
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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