Engineering a heparin-mimeticbiomaterial to promote tissue vascularization

Publication Type:

Article

Authors:

Linqing Li, Jinling Yang, Luba Perry, Jennifer L. Bays, Sangeeta Bhatia, Jeroen Eyckmans & Christopher S. Chen 

Source:

Communications Biology (2025)

Access:

Manuscript (PDF)

Journal: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-08946-4

Abstract:

A major challenge in tissue engineering involves the development of synthetic biomaterials that effectively induce and maintain functional vascularization of engineered tissue constructs post implantation. While conjugating heparin to a dextran hydrogel developed a pro-angiogenic scaffold that led to substantial endothelial multicellular assembly in vitro and enhanced host vessel invasion in vivo, the inherent anti-coagulant bioactivities of native heparin elicited substantial local bleeding upon implantation. To decouple the pro-angiogenic effects from the anti-coagulant activity, we developed a synthetic, heparin-mimetic material by introducing sulfate adducts to the dextran backbone. These heparin-mimetic hydrogels bound and immobilized growth factors, enhanced angiogenic signaling, and promoted both in vitro vascular network formation in 3D and in vivo tissue microvascularization to a similar extent as heparin conjugated hydrogels, but without inducing local bleeding at implantation sites. This development of a fully synthetic, highly tunable angiogenic biomaterial provides a new material system to engineer functional vascularized tissues.