Engineering components of a vascularized, microsurgically implantable adipose tissue
Embargo Date
2020-06-04
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Current method to treat large soft tissue defects relies on transfer of autologous adipocutaneous tissue, a method that is often limited by donor site availability. Engineered adipose tissue can potentially serve as a readily accessible substitute to autologous tissue. As immediate vascularization is critical for tissue survival after transplantation, it is important for the engineered tissue to contain preformed vasculature that can be connected to native circulation via suture anastomosis. In this thesis I present methods to engineer 1) an endothelialized dense collagen tube that can serve as the bridge between the engineered tissue and the host circulation and 2) a small-scale, perfusable, vascularized adipose tissue.
This work shows that the endothelialized dense collagen tubes possess sufficient mechanical strength and can be implanted in the rat femoral circulation as interpositional grafts via suture anastomosis. It also shows that the crosslinking and culture condition has significant effect on the endothelial stability, which in turn affects the patency upon implantation. Implanted tubes can remain patent and conduct blood flow for up to seven days.
The small-scale adipose tissue contains a preformed vessel that allows immediate perfusion and delivery of nutrient to the adipocytes. The vessel possesses good barrier function and the adipocytes are both viable and can respond to perfusion of lipoactive hormones, insulin and epinephrine, in a physiologically correct manner. In addition, I have developed a mathematical model that correlates the growth of adipocytes to the distance from the feeding vessel.
These two constructs can potentially serve as the base unit for engineering larger, implantable vascularized adipose tissue.