Micro-CT of 3D vascular structures: clues for innovative scaffolds in organ engineering

Organ transplantation is the only definitive treatment for patients with incurable diseases of soft and hard tissue structures, including parenchyma and bones. However, shortage and aging of cadaveric and alive donors, and a number of other ethical and clinical issues render complex any organ transplant1. A recent hope has been raised by regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, but current methodologies are yet limited to the reconstruction of either tissue fragments or implantation of biocompatible scaffolds to be colonized by the regenerating areas. Although recent advancement in material science and stem cell biology has led to biocompatible scaffolds more efficient than in the past, still these constructs are designed without any anatomy of the vasculature intrinsic to the recipient organ, based on the assumption that nutrients and oxygen are supplied by diffusion from adjacent tissues2. Since in both parenchyma and bones the tissue mass grows around a complex vascular tree, we have recently developed an innovative bioengineering approach to reconstruct on the laboratory bench an entire bioartificial organ with a pre-formed internal vascular network acting as a natural scaffold for seeded stem cells, and as a guide for colonizing vessels, possibly improving the functional and transplantation performance of the bioconstruct 3. Micro-CT play a key role to obtain visual and numerical information on the complex vascular geometry of the organ to be engineered. We here present data on vascular casts of the rat lungs, and human kidney and thyroid gland, to be used in the development of STL- algorithms for CAD-based, inverse engineering of biomaterial replicas of soft tissue organ vasculature.