Patterning human stem cells and endothelial cells with laser printing for cardiac regeneration

Recent study showed that mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) could inhibit apoptosis of endothelial cells in hypoxic condition, increase their survival, and stimulate the angiogenesis process. In this project we applied Laser-Induced-Forward-Transfer (LIFT) cell printing technique and prepared a cardiac patch seeded with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and human MSC (hMSC) in a defined pattern for cardiac regeneration. We seeded HUVEC and hMSC in a defined pattern on a Polyester urethane urea (PEUU) cardiac patch. On control patches an equal amount of cells was randomly seeded without LIFT. Patches were cultivated in vitro or transplanted in vivo to the infarcted zone of rat hearts after LAD-ligation. Cardiac performance was measured by left ventricular catheterization 8 weeks post infarction. Thereafter hearts were perfused with fluorescein tomato lectin for the assessment of functional blood vessels and stored for histology analyses. We demonstrated that LIFT-derived cell seeding pattern definitely modified growth characteristics of co-cultured HUVEC and hMSC leading to increased vessel formation and found significant functional improvement of infarcted hearts following transplantation of a LIFT-tissue engineered cardiac patch. Further, we could show enhanced capillary density and integration of human cells into the functionally connected vessels of murine vascular system. LIFT-based Tissue Engineering of cardiac patches for the treatment of myocardial infarction might improve wound healing and functional preservation.