Hyaluronic acid regulates heart valve interstitial cell contraction in fibrin-based scaffolds.

ABSTRACT: Heart valve disease is associated with high morbidity and mortality worldwide resulting in hundreds of thousands of heart valve replacements each year. Tissue engineered heart valves (TEHVs) have the potential to overcome the major limitations of traditional replacement valves; however, leaflet retraction has led to the failure of TEHVs in preclinical studies. As native unmodified hyaluronic acid (HA) is known to promote healthy tissue development in native heart valves, we hypothesize that adding unmodified HA to fibrin-based scaffolds common to tissue engineering will reduce retraction by increasing cell-scaffold interactions and density of the scaffolds. Using a custom high-throughput culture system, we found that incorporating HA into millimeter-scale fibrin-based cell-populated scaffo

SUBMITTER: Lei Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8627498 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature