title: Biomechanical properties of native and tissue engineered heart valve constructs.
abstract: Due to the increasing number of heart valve diseases, there is an urgent clinical need for off-the-shelf tissue engineered heart valves. While significant progress has been made toward improving the design and performance of both mechanical and tissue engineered heart valves (TEHVs), a human implantable, functional, and viable TEHV has remained elusive. In animal studies so far, the implanted TEHVs have failed to survive more than a few months after transplantation due to insufficient mechanical properties. Therefore, the success of future heart valve tissue engineering approaches depends on the ability of the TEHV to mimic and maintain the functional and mechanical properties of the native heart valves. However, aside from some tensile quasistatic data and flexural or bending properties, detailed mechanical properties such as dynamic fatigue, creep behavior, and viscoelastic properties of heart valves are still poorly understood. The need for better understanding and more detailed characterization of mechanical properties of tissue engineered, as well as native heart valve constructs is thus evident. In the current review we aim to present an overview of the current understanding of the mechanical properties of human and common animal model heart valves. The relevant data on both native and tissue engineered heart valve constructs have been compiled and analyzed to help in defining the target ranges for mechanical properties of TEHV constructs, particularly for the aortic and the pulmonary valves. We conclude with a summary of perspectives on the future work on better understanding of the mechanical properties of TEHV constructs.
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Anwarul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hasan
authors.affiliation: CPMT Group, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Architecture, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ragaert
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, 02-507 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Swieszkowski
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Seila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Selimović
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Arghya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Paul
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Gulden
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Camci-Unal
authors.affiliation: Departments of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Mohammad R K
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Mofrad
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA; World Premier International - Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR), Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan. Electronic address: alik@rics.bwh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khademhosseini
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006351:Heart Valves / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D023822:Tissue Engineering
keywords: Aortic and pulmonary heart valves; Biomechanics; Mechanical properties; Tissue engineering