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Engineering vascularized skeletal muscle tissue
- Shulamit Levenberg1,2,
- Jeroen Rouwkema3,
- Mara Macdonald2,
- Evan S Garfein4,
- Daniel S Kohane5,
- Diane C Darland6,
- Robert Marini7,
- Clemens A van Blitterswijk3,
- Richard C Mulligan8,
- Patricia A D'Amore6 &
- …
- Robert Langer2
Nature Biotechnologyvolume 23, pages879–884 (2005)Cite this article
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Abstract
One of the major obstacles in engineering thick, complex tissues such as muscle is the need to vascularize the tissuein vitro. Vascularizationin vitro could maintain cell viability during tissue growth, induce structural organization and promote vascularization upon implantation. Here we describe the induction of endothelial vessel networks in engineered skeletal muscle tissue constructs using a three-dimensional multiculture system consisting of myoblasts, embryonic fibroblasts and endothelial cells coseeded on highly porous, biodegradable polymer scaffolds. Analysis of the conditions for induction and stabilization of the vesselsin vitro showed that addition of embryonic fibroblasts increased the levels of vascular endothelial growth factor expression in the construct and promoted formation and stabilization of the endothelial vessels. We studied the survival and vascularization of the engineered muscle implantsin vivo in three different models. Prevascularization improved the vascularization, blood perfusion and survival of the muscle tissue constructs after transplantation.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the MIT division of comparative medicine for excellent assistance in tissue embedding and processing, Adam Kapur for help with data analysis, and Justin S. Golub for help with RT-PCR assays. We would like to thank Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor for assistance and cooperation in conducting this research. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants HL60435 (R.L. and S.L.) and EY05318 (P.A.D. and D.C.D.).
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Authors and Affiliations
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion, Haifa, 32000, Israel
Shulamit Levenberg
Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA
Shulamit Levenberg, Mara Macdonald & Robert Langer
Institute for Biomedical Technology, Twente University, Prof. Bronkhorstlaan 10-D, Bilthoven, 3723MB, The Netherlands
Jeroen Rouwkema & Clemens A van Blitterswijk
Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis St., Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA
Evan S Garfein
Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit St., Boston, 02114, Massachusetts, USA
Daniel S Kohane
The Schepens Eye Research Institute and Department of Ophthalmology, 20 Staniford St., Boston, 02114, Massachusetts, USA
Diane C Darland & Patricia A D'Amore
Division of Comparative Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA
Robert Marini
Department of Molecular Medicine, Children's Hospital 300 Longwood Avenue, 02115, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Richard C Mulligan
- Shulamit Levenberg
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- Jeroen Rouwkema
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- Mara Macdonald
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- Evan S Garfein
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- Daniel S Kohane
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- Diane C Darland
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- Robert Marini
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- Clemens A van Blitterswijk
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- Richard C Mulligan
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- Patricia A D'Amore
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- Robert Langer
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Corresponding authors
Correspondence toShulamit Levenberg orRobert Langer.
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Fig. 1
VEGF and PDGF-B expression in 3D constructs. (PDF 873 kb)
Supplementary Fig. 2
Quantitative analysis of number of endothelial vessels in muscle implants seeded with HUVEC or hESC-derived endothelial cells. (PDF 481 kb)
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Levenberg, S., Rouwkema, J., Macdonald, M.et al. Engineering vascularized skeletal muscle tissue.Nat Biotechnol23, 879–884 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1109
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