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The vascular system is one of the first to develop during embryogenesis and is essential for all organs and tissues in our body to develop and function. It has many essential roles including controlling the absorption, distribution and excretion of compounds and therefore determines the pharmacokinetics of drugs and therapeutics. Vascular homeostasis is under tight physiological control which is essential for maintaining tissues in a healthy state. Consequently, disruption of vascular homeostasis plays an integral role in many disease processes, making cells of the vessel wall attractive targets for therapeutic intervention. Experimental models of blood vessels can therefore contribute significantly to drug development and aid in predicting the biological effects of new drug entities. The increasing availability of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) derived from healthy individuals and patients have accelerated advances in developing experimental in vitro models of the vasculature: human endothelial cells (ECs), pericytes and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), can now be generated with high efficiency from hiPSC and used in 'microfluidic chips' (also known as 'organ-on-chip' technology) as a basis for in vitro models of blood vessels. These near physiological scaffolds allow the controlled integration of fluid flow and three-dimensional (3D) co-cultures with perivascular cells to mimic tissue- or organ-level physiology and dysfunction in vitro. Here, we review recent multidisciplinary developments in these advanced experimental models of blood vessels that combine hiPSC with microfluidic organ-on-chip technology. We provide examples of their utility in various research areas and discuss steps necessary for further integration in biomedical applications so that they can be contribute effectively to the evaluation and development of new drugs and other therapeutics as well as personalized (patient-specific) treatments. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

We demonstrate an in vitro microfluidic cell culture platform that consists of periodic 3D hydrogel compartments with controllable shapes. The microchip is composed of approximately 500 discontinuous collagen gel compartments locally patterned in between PDMS pillars, separated by microfluidic channels. The typical volume of each compartment is 7.5 nanoliters. The compartmentalized design of the microchip and continuous fluid delivery enable long-term culturing of Caco-2 human intestine cells. We found that the cells started to spontaneously grow into 3D folds on day 3 of the culture. On day 8, Caco-2 cells were co-cultured for 36 hours under microfluidic perfusion with intestinal bacteria (E. coli) which did not overgrow in the system, and adhered to the Caco-2 cells without affecting cell viability. Continuous perfusion enabled the preliminary evaluation of drug effects by treating the co-culture of Caco-2 and E. coli with 34 µg ml−1 chloramphenicol during 36 hours, resulting in the death of the bacteria. Caco-2 cells were also cultured in different compartment geometries with large and small hydrogel interfaces, leading to differences in proliferation and cell spreading profile of Caco-2 cells. The presented approach of compartmentalized cell culture with facile microfluidic control can substantially increase the throughput of in vitro drug screening in the future.

Arterial thrombosis is the main instigating factor of heart attacks and strokes, which result in over 14 million deaths worldwide every year. The mechanism of thrombosis involves factors from the blood and the vessel wall, and it also relies strongly on 3D vessel geometry and local blood flow patterns. Microfluidic chip-based vascular models allow controlled in vitro studies of the interaction between vessel wall and blood in thrombosis, but until now, they could not fully recapitulate the 3D geometry and blood flow patterns of real-life healthy or diseased arteries. Here we present a method for fabricating microfluidic chips containing miniaturized vascular structures that closely mimic architectures found in both healthy and stenotic blood vessels. By applying stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing of computed tomography angiography (CTA) data, 3D vessel constructs were produced with diameters of 400 μm, and resolution as low as 25 μm. The 3D-printed templates in turn were used as moulds for polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based soft lithography to create microfluidic chips containing miniaturized replicates of in vivo vessel geometries. By applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling a correlation in terms of flow fields and local wall shear rate was found between the original and miniaturized artery. The walls of the microfluidic chips were coated with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) which formed a confluent monolayer as confirmed by confocal fluorescence microscopy. The endothelialised microfluidic devices, with healthy and stenotic geometries, were perfused with human whole blood with fluorescently labeled platelets at physiologically relevant shear rates. After 15 minutes of perfusion the healthy geometries showed no sign of thrombosis, while the stenotic geometries did induce thrombosis at and downstream of the stenotic area. Overall, the novel methodology reported here, overcomes important design limitations found in typical 2D wafer-based soft lithography microfabrication techniques and shows great potential for controlled studies of the role of 3D vessel geometries and blood flow patterns in arterial thrombosis.