Fabrication of a reticular poly(lactide-co-glycolide) cylindrical scaffold for the in vitro development of microvascular networks

The microvascular network is a simple but critical system that is responsible for a range of important biological mechanisms in the bodies of all animals. The ability to generate a functional microvessel in vitro not only makes it possible to engineer vital tissue of considerable size but also serves as a platform for biomedical studies. However, most of the current methods for generating microvessel networks in vitro use rectangular channels which cannot represent real vessels in vivo and have dead zones at their corners, hence hindering the circulation of culture medium. We propose a scaffold-wrapping method which enables fabrication of a customized microvascular network in vitro in a more biomimetic way. By integrating microelectromechanical techniques with thermal reflow, we designed and fabricated a microscale hemi-cylindrical photoresist template. A replica mold of polydimethylsiloxane, produced by casting, was then used to generate cylindrical scaffolds with biodegradable poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA). Human umbilical vein endothelial cells were seeded on both sides of the PLGA scaffold and cultured using a traditional approach. The expression of endothelial cell marker CD31 and intercellular junction vascular endothelial cadherin on the cultured cell demonstrated the potential of generating a microvascular network with a degradable cylindrical scaffold. Our method allows cells to be cultured on a scaffold using a conventional culture approach and monitors cell conditions continuously. We hope our cell-covered scaffold can serve as a framework for building large tissues or can be used as the core of a vascular chip for in vitro circulation studies.