Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
Annu Rev Biomed Eng. 2012;14:205-30. doi: 10.1146/annurev-bioeng-071811-150052. Epub 2012 Apr 23.
In vitro studies of vascular physiology have traditionally relied on cultures of endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, and pericytes grown on centimeter-scale plates, filters, and flow chambers. The introduction of microfluidic tools has revolutionized the study of vascular physiology by allowing researchers to create physiologically relevant culture models, at the same time greatly reducing the consumption of expensive reagents. By taking advantage of the small dimensions and laminar flow inherent in microfluidic systems, recent studies have created in vitro models that reproduce many features of the in vivo vascular microenvironment with fine spatial and temporal resolution. In this review, we highlight the advantages of microfluidics in four areas: the investigation of hemodynamics on a capillary length scale, the modulation of fluid streams over vascular cells, angiogenesis induced by the exposure of vascular cells to well-defined gradients in growth factors or pressure, and the growth of microvascular networks in biomaterials. Such unique capabilities at the microscale are rapidly advancing the understanding of microcirculatory dynamics, shear responses, and angiogenesis in health and disease as well as the ability to create in vivo-like blood vessels in vitro.
传统的血管生理学体外研究依赖于在厘米级规模的培养板、过滤器和流动室上培养的内皮细胞、平滑肌细胞和成纤维细胞。微流控工具的引入通过允许研究人员创建具有生理相关性的培养模型，同时大大减少昂贵试剂的消耗，从而彻底改变了血管生理学的研究。通过利用微流控系统固有的小尺寸和平稳流动特性，最近的研究已经创建了体外模型，这些模型以精细的时空分辨率再现了体内血管微环境的许多特征。在这篇综述中，我们强调了微流控在四个方面的优势：在毛细血管长度尺度上研究血液动力学，在血管细胞上调制流体流，通过将血管细胞暴露于生长因子或压力的明确定义的梯度来诱导血管生成，以及在生物材料中生长微血管网络。这种独特的微尺度能力正在迅速推进对健康和疾病中微循环动力学、剪切响应和血管生成的理解，以及在体外创建类似体内血管的能力。
