Effect of Hemodynamics on the Proliferation of Endothelial Cells

This study discussed the effect of hemodynamics on the proliferation of endothelial cells. We designed the pulsatile parallel plate flow chamber which combined PDMS polymer on the chamber bottom. Shear stress range were 3-25 dyne/cm2、flow rate were 0.1-1.6 ml/sec、Re numbers were 20-210. By using different mixture ratio of sylgard 184(A) and curing agent (B), the PDMS polymer can made with different stiffness, the resulted Young’s moduli were about 0.072-1.76 MPa. The endothelial cells were cultured on the PDMS polymer to study the cell proliferation under no flow condition and excited flow with different membrane stiffness.

Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were obtained from NTUH. to To reduce individual bias the endothelial cells were collected and mixed from more than one umbilical cords in all experiments. Results showed that the endothelial cells proliferation under no flow conditions increases on high stiffness PDMS (E=1.76 MPa, 15.4%; E=0.072MPa, 8.8%). Under excited flow, the cell proliferation for both the high surface-stiffness and low surface-stiffness increased remarkably. (E=1.76 MPa, 44.8%; E=0.072MPa, 44.5%). Besides, the enhanced temporal gradient in shear stress also increases the cell proliferation. It is therefore concluded that the Womersley number seemed to play an important rule on the endothelial cells proliferation.