Pre-screening the intrinsic angiogenic capacity of biomaterials in an optimised chorioallantoic membrane model.

Biomaterial development for clinical applications is currently on the rise. This necessitates adequate testing, where the structure and composition of biomaterials must be specifically tailored to withstand repair and regeneration responses for a successful clinical outcome. The chorioallantoic membrane of chicken embryos has been previously used to study angiogenesis, a prerequisite for most tissue repair and regeneration. In this study, we report an optimised method using a glass-cling film set-up that yields increased embryo survival rates and has an improved protocol for harvesting biomaterials. Furthermore, we used this method to examine the intrinsic angiogenic capacity of a variety of biomaterials categorised as natural, synthetic, natural/synthetic and natural/natural composites with varying porosities. We detected significant differences in biomaterials' angiogenesis with natural polymers and polymers with a high overall porosity showing a greater vascularisation compared to synthetic polymers. Therefore, our proposed chorioallantoic membrane method can be effectively used to pre-screen biomaterials intended for clinical application.