title: The peritoneum as a natural scaffold for vascular regeneration.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The peritoneum has the same developmental origin as blood vessels, is highly reactive and poorly thrombogenic. We hypothesize that parietal peritoneum can sustain development and regeneration of new vessels.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study comprised two experimental approaches. First, to test surgical feasibility and efficacy of the peritoneal vascular autograft, we set up an autologous transplantation procedure in pigs, where a tubularized parietal peritoneal graft was covered with a metal mesh and anastomosed end-to-end in the infrarenal aorta. Second, to dissect the contribution of graft vs host cells to the newly developed vessel wall, we performed human-to-rat peritoneal patch grafting in the abdominal aorta and examined the origin of endothelial and smooth muscle cells. In pig experiments, the graft remodeled to an apparently normal blood vessel, without thrombosis. Histology confirmed arterialization of the graft with complete endothelial coverage and neointimal hyperplasia in the absence of erosion, inflammation or thrombosis. In rats, immunostaining for human mitochondri revealed that endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells rarely were of human origin. Remodeling of the graft was mainly attributable to local cells with no clear evidence of c-kit+ endothelial progenitor cells or c-kit+ resident perivascular progenitor cells.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The parietal peritoneum can be feasibly used as a scaffold to sustain the regeneration of blood vessels, which appears to occur through the contribution of host-derived resident mature cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy. stefanobonvini@yahoo.it
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bonvini
authors.forename: Mattia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Albiero
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ferretto
authors.forename: Annalisa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Angelini
authors.forename: Piero
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Battocchio
authors.forename: Marny
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fedrigo
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Piazza
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Thiene
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Avogaro
authors.forename: Gian Paolo
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Fadini
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Grego
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001011:Aorta / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery / Q000637:transplantation; D001807:Blood Vessel Prosthesis; D019917:Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation / Q000379:methods; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000502:physiology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010537:Peritoneum / Q000166:cytology / Q000637:transplantation*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012038:Regeneration / Q000502:physiology*; D013552:Swine; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous