Daniela Ochoa
A High Throughput Assay to Measure In Vivo Angiogenesis from Bioactive Materials
Home Institution: Lincoln University
Study Institution: Missouri S & T
Advisor: Dr. Julie Semon
Abstract
After a chick embryo chorioallantois membrane (CAM) has developed, the vascular system can be easily accessed, utilized, and observed. A developed CAM provides an ideal setting for angiogenesis, which is the formation of new blood micro-vessels in soft tissue repair as part of the wound healing process. In the early stages, chicken eggs provide an in-vivo model to study angiogenesis. The purpose of this study was to find a better wound healing material. Chick embryo CAMs assays are a naturally immunodeficient host therefore chick eggs were used to test six different polymer-based scaffold materials that have been shown to have some tissue regenerative properties. Data was collected from 25 incubated chicken eggs. After using a cracking procedure, one of six different bioactive scaffolds were placed on each egg and images of the CAM were captured every other day using a stereoscope to compare the number of newly developed branches among the blood micro-vessels.
Results showed the glass PLA/45S5 scaffold consistently facilitated the greatest number of new micro-blood vessels. Further research is needed to determine if PLA/45S5 would be the most effective bioactive glass for tissue regeneration. If PLA/45S5 is the most effective bioactive glass, further research and experimentation would be needed to determine exactly what makes it the most angiogenic and beneficial.
Funding: NSF MOSLAMP award # 16196