Determining the Efficacy of Coaxing Porcine Cardiac Scaffolds into Human Hearts

Heart disease is the global leading cause of death; the number of needed donor hearts grows daily while the quantity of available donor hearts remains stagnate. Developing patient-specific bioartificial hearts is a promising response to the mounting need for new and more effective therapies for patients with heart disease. In this study porcine hearts were decellularized in an automated perfusion apparatus utilizing an established method [1]. A hemolysis assay using human blood was used to optimize the post-decellularization scaffold to preserve more natural ECM structural contents and minimize the residual detergents and cytotoxicity. The right ventricle of the hearts were dissected, cannulated through the main right coronary artery, and the exposed large vessels due to the cut were closed using Vetbond^® tissue adhesive. Sections were placed in a sealed, agitated and oxygenated bioreactor and sterilized with a protocol optimized for being less destructive to enhance cell attachment to the ECM. Sections were then perfused with growth medium for 24 hours and reseeded with 1×10⁸ fluorescence labeled human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and cardiac fibroblasts (HCF) through vasculature perfusion and needle injection into the ECM respectively. After at least 7 days of perfusion, histological images showed HUVECs and HCFs had infiltrated the myocardium and right ventricle, covering the vasculature. The human cells appear to have responded positively to the porcine cardiac scaffold implying it may be a suitable framework for the further development of human hearts.