Fabrication and Evaluation of Poly(glycerol sebacate) based small diameter vascular graft as a potent substitution for autologous vessels

心血管疾病被公认为全球死亡率的主要原因。它们起源于血管的狭窄或阻塞。血流量减少会扰乱血液循环性能，导致心肌梗死、动脉疾病和血栓形成，以及组织损伤。许多治疗策略已经被应用到血管成形术、支架植入或自体动脉或静脉移植。血管搭桥术经常被采用，然而通常缺乏合适的、高质量的血管来作为自体移植物。因此，扩大合成聚合物接枝研究的重要性是无可辩驳的。由聚四氟乙烯(PTFE，Teflon)和聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯(PET，Dacron)制成的商业合成大直径产品已经上市，但不适合用于小直径接枝。由于其不适当的依从性和弹性，容易发生内膜增生。因此，在过去的几年里，研究集中在小直径血管组织的工程上。该项目的目的是设计和制造一种具有成本效益的现成小直径血管移植物，以潜在地模仿天然血管。聚癸二酸甘油(PGS)具有可调的力学性能、弹性、生物相容性、生物降解性、血液相容性、价格低廉和透明性，是小直径血管组织工程的理想选择。该项目假设，更耐用的PGS衍生物可以支持平滑肌细胞，添加一些基团，如甲基丙烯酸酯，聚碳酸酯多元醇可以控制机械强度和生物降解性。此外，利用多面体低聚倍半硅氧烷(POSS)等纳米膜对PGS进行修饰，不仅可以增加弹性，而且通过其抗蛋白质和抗血小板的吸附特性，还可以对血液相容性产生积极影响。

Cardiovascular diseases are recognized as the main cause of mortality rate globally. They originate from narrowing or blockage of blood vessels. Decreasing blood flow could disrupt blood circulation performance and cause myocardial infarction, arterial disease and thrombosis, and tissue damage. Many therapeutic strategies have been applied from medications to angioplasty, stent insertion, or grafting autologous arteries or veins. Vascular bypass grafting is often employed, however is often a lack of suitable, good quality vasculature to sue as an autologous graft. Consequently, the importance of widening research in synthetic polymeric grafts is irrefutable. Commercial synthetic large-diameter products fabricated from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, Teflon) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET, Dacron), are already on the market, but are not a suitable candidate for small-diameter grafts. Due to their improper compliance and elasticity, they are prone to intimal hyperplasia. Hence, research has focussed on the engineering of small-diameter vessel tissues over the last few years. The aim of the project is to design and fabricate a cost-effective and off-the-shelf small-diameter vascular graft to potentially mimic the natural vessel. Poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) is a good choice for small-diameter vessel tissue engineering because of its tuneable mechanical properties, elasticity, biocompatibility, biodegradability, hemocompatibility, inexpensiveness, and transparency. This project hypothesizes that a more durable PGS derivatives could support smooth muscle cells and the addition of some groups like methacrylate, and polycarbonate polyols could control the mechanical strength and biodegradability. Moreover, the PGS modification with nanofillers like Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS), could not only have a positive impact on increasing elasticity but also hemocompatibility through its anti-protein and anti-platelet adsorption properties.