Potential cell sources for tissue engineering of heart valves in comparison with human pulmonary valve cells.
Current techniques to resolve heart valve defects involve the use of prosthetic and bioprosthetic materials. These materials lack the potential to grow and are not ideal, especially not for pediatric patients. Novel techniques like tissue engineering involve the use of biodegradable polymers coated with autologous myofibroblast and endothelial cells. We inspected morphological and marker gene expression differences between cells harvested from the saphenous vein, or from veins and arteries of the umbilical cord, and the cells they are designed to replace: the interstitial and endothelial cells of the pulmonary heart valve. We assessed the extent to which the endothelial cells from the inspected sources in vitro resemble endothelial cells of human pulmonary heart valves, and we found that myofibroblast cells, respective of their source, in vitro differ from the interstitial cells from human pulmonary heart valves regarding collagen and smooth muscle alpha-actin. Therefore we conclude that the cells isolated from the saphenous veins, or from veins and arteries of the umbilical cord might be feasible cell sources for tissue engineering of heart valve for the pulmonary position.
Schaefermeier
Philipp K
PK
Department of Cardiac Surgery, Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Cell Transplantation, University Hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany. pschaefe@med.lmu.de
Cabeza
Natalia
N
Besser
Jaya C
JC
Lohse
Peter
P
Daebritz
Sabine H
SH
Schmitz
Christoph
C
Reichart
Bruno
B
Sodian
Ralf
R
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D015870:Gene Expression; D006349:Heart Valve Diseases / Q000628:therapy; D006351:Heart Valves / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D016130:Immunophenotyping; D011664:Pulmonary Valve / Q000166:cytology*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012501:Saphenous Vein / Q000166:cytology; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D014471:Umbilical Veins / Q000166:cytology
D015415:Biomarkers