Gene Response in Endothelial Cells Cultured on Engineered Surfaces Is Regulated by Shear Stress

In vitro endothelialization of small-diameter synthetic vascular prostheses confluently lined with cultured autologous endothelial cells (ECs) before implantation has been shown to increase their patency. Many authors have studied the effects of shear stress on EC gene response seeded on various substrates showing different gene expression profiles according to cell type, flow times, or shear type with different molecular biology techniques, but few studies have reported any EC gene response to shear stress when cells are seeded on vascular grafts. The purpose of this in vitro study was to investigate whether ECs were able to transduce shear stress at the level of the nucleus. Human saphenous vein ECs were seeded on glass slides coated with gelatin or fibrin glue or on 6-mm fibrin-glue-coated grafts. Then cells were exposed to 12 dyn/cm2 for 4 h and ribonucleic acid (RNA) were extracted. The relative messenger RNA (mRNA) expression was studied using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction for the...