Scaffolds Covalently Immobilized with VEGF and Angiopoietin-1 to Promote Angiogenesis In Engineered Cardiac Tissues

摘要

Cardiovascular diseases have been the main cause of death in Canada for the past 25 years, and accounted for more than 30% of deaths in 2004 [1]. Myocardium infarction causes irreversible damage to the heart, and the heart becomes incapable of regeneration due to the non-proliferative nature of terminally differentiated adult cardiomyocytes. As a result, there is motivation to engineer cardiac tissue patches in vitro by culturing cardiac cells in a scaffold matrix, after which these patches can be grafted into the diseased heart to regenerate the injured myocardium.