title: The Porcine Aortic Tissue Culture System in vitro for Stem Cell Research.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Due to the shortage of human donors for transplantation, the use of animal organs for xenotransplantation has come into great interest. Xeno-derived vessels and cardiac valves would be possible alternatives for the patient suffering from cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, we established in vitro culture system of a porcine vessel that could be helpful for the research of xenograft and stem cell research.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We primarily isolated porcine thoracic aorta, cultured square-shaped pieces up to 17 days and analyzed its morphology and characters. The endothelial cells were primarily isolated from cultured porcine aortic pieces and their morphology, function and character were analyzed in order to confirm them as endothelial cells at day 3, 4, 8, 10 and 17. Even at day 17, the morphology exhibited the intact endothelial layer as well as specifically expressed CD31 and von Willebrand factor. The morphology of primarily isolated cells from cultured tissues was identical as an endothelial cell. By flow cytometry analysis, more than 80% of the isolated cells expressed CD31 and up to 80% took up acetyl low density lipoprotein (ac-LDL) until day 10 of tissue culture period even though it decreased to about 50% at day 17 that means they not only showed typical endothelial cell characters but also functioned properly.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We successfully established and optimized a porcine vascular tissue in vitro culture system that could be a valuable model for in vitro study of xenotransplantation and stem cell research.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Differentiation/Transplantation ; Department of Dental Regenerative Biotechnology, Dental Research Institue, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University.
authors.forename: Dong-Eun
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Keun-Hee
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.forename: Ji-Hye
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Sun-Keun
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Tae-Jun
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Seul-Bi
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Hyun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.forename: Dong-Sup
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jung-Ryul
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Gene
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jaejin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cho
keywords: CD31; DiI-ac-LDL; Endothelial cells; Primary porcine aortic tissue culture; Stem cell; Xenotransplantation