Fibrin: A Natural Biodegradable Scaffold in Vascular Tissue Engineering

Arterial occlusive disease remains a major health issue in the developed world and a rapidly growing problem in the developing world. Although a growing number of patients are now being effectively treated with minimally invasive techniques, there remains a tremendous pressure on the vascular commun...

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Published inCells, tissues, organs Vol. 188; no. 4; pp. 333 - 346
Main Authors Shaikh, Faisal M., Callanan, Anthony, Kavanagh, Eamon G., Burke, Paul E., Grace, Pierce A., McGloughlin, Tim M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel, Switzerland S. Karger AG 01.01.2008
Subjects
Biocompatible Materials - chemistry
Blood Vessel Prosthesis
Blood Vessels - chemistry
Blood Vessels - physiology
Endothelial Cells - cytology
Endothelial Cells - physiology
Extracellular Matrix - metabolism
Fibrin - chemistry
Fibrin - metabolism
Gels - chemistry
Humans
Review
Tissue Engineering
Tissue engineering
Fibrin gel
Natural scaffolds
Vascular grafts
Biodegradable scaffolds
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Summary:Arterial occlusive disease remains a major health issue in the developed world and a rapidly growing problem in the developing world. Although a growing number of patients are now being effectively treated with minimally invasive techniques, there remains a tremendous pressure on the vascular community to develop a synthetic small-diameter vascular graft with improved long-term patency rates. The field of tissue engineering offers an exciting alternative in the search for living organ replacement structures. Several methodologies have emerged for constructing blood vessel replacements with biological functionality. Common strategies include cell-seeded biodegradable synthetic scaffolds, cell self-assembly, cell-seeded gels and xenogeneic acellular materials. A wide range of materials are being investigated as potential scaffolds for vascular tissue engineering applications. Some are commercialised and others are still in development. Recently, researchers have studied the role of fibrin gel as a three-dimensional scaffold in vascular tissue engineering. This overview describes the properties of fibrin gel in vascular tissue engineering and highlights some recent progress and difficulties encountered in the development of cell fibrin scaffold technology.
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ISSN:1422-6405
1422-6421
DOI:10.1159/000139772