| The focus of this study is to investigate the vasculogenic potential of cells seeded on two different scaffolds, a commercially available collagen cell carrier (CCC) and the vitelline membrane (VM) from a chick egg. Two cell types with vasculogenic potential were used in this study, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and rat bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs). The vaculogenesis as well as levels of SM&agr;A and vWF expression were determined using confocal microscopy. This analysis of the two scaffolds showed that cells seeded onto the VM exhibited more rapid vasculogenesis than cells seeded on the CCC regardless of cell type. Future work will look into developing a scaffold using collagen and other biomolecules that mimics the structure of the VM to determine its role in promoting vasculogenesis. |
