Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Fluid forces control structural remodeling of blind-ended lymphatic microvessels
doi: 10.1101/2025.04.14.648799
Figure Lengend Snippet: Engineered blind-ended lymphatic microvessel. A) Schematic of the novel PDMS-based Static microdevice and subsequent steps to generate a lymphatic vessel. A 250-μm-diameter wire is placed within the device terminating at the midplane of the central ECM chamber. Collagen-based hydrogel is pipetted into the central chamber via the lateral gel ports. Upon gel polymerization, the wire is removed to expose a blind-ended hollow lumen structure. The templated lumen is then seeded with human dermal lymphatic endothelial cells (HDLECs) to create a microvessel. PDMS layers are represented as transparent gray, glass slide as blue, collagen as yellow, cell culture media as pink, and HDLECs as green. Black dashed region depicts the top view of the central gel chamber with the engineered microtissue fully constituted. Scale bar is 1 mm. B) Phase-contrast images corresponding to steps in A to illustrate workflow resulting in a representative blind-ended lymphatic vessel encased in 3 mg mL -1 collagen (COL). Scale bars are 500 μm. C) Photograph of Static microfluidic device. Scale bar is 5 mm. D) Confocal z -projection of a representative blind-ended lymphatic microvessel stained for junction protein VE-Cadherin (antibody, magenta) and nuclei (DAPI, blue). E) Orthogonal views to demonstrate a patent, perfusable microvessel with a monolayer of HDLECs: x-y , x-z , and y-z cross sections (counterclockwise from upper left). Scale bars in D and E are 200 μm. F) 3-D render of a blind-ended lymphatic vessel from confocal z -stack. Major tick marks are 200 μm.
Article Snippet: The 3-D geometry of the microvessel and device were constructed in COMSOL Multiphysics 6.2 with precise dimensions.
Techniques: Cell Culture, Staining