Investigate the effect of inosculation strategy on promoting vascularization in tissue engineering

Tissue engineering is a rapidly growing field of research for several decades, which is driven by the human urgent need for tissue substitutes and transplantable organs. Considering the advancements, the clinical applications in the field of tissue engineering have been limited until now. The major reason toward this limitation is the lack of sufficient blood supply for the tissue in the earliest phase after implantation. Time-consuming process of angiogenesis leads to inadequate vascularization and finally, death of cells and destruction of tissue. During recent years, by implementing a strategy called Inosculation, it has been tried to facilitate tissue vascularization by a preformed vasculature network within tissue structure. In the current research considering cellular nature of angiogenesis process, relying on a cell-based mathematical model, the effect of inosculation strategy is investigated through the dynamics of angiogenesis process with respect to extracellular, cellular and intracellular spatio-temporal scales. The results show the advantages of inosculation strategy over angiogenesis strategy in vascularization of tissue constructs. The model demonstrates the capability of inosculation strategy to improve the anastomosis probability, which is providing the crucial requisite for the blood to flow through capillary network. Furthermore, the cellular model was developed in a way that illustrates the effects of extracellular matrix on morphogenesis through branching phenomenon.