Biomimetic modification on the microporous surface of cardiovascular materials to accelerate endothelialization and regulate intimal regeneration.

Vascular stents are widely used in the clinical treatment of coronary heart disease, but the long-term safety still needs to be improved. Surface biological functional modification is an effective way to improve the biocompatibility and clinical performance of cardiovascular materials, but how to achieve long-term effective and precise regulation of in situ vascular intimal repair through the reasonable construction of the surface physical and chemical structure is still an important task in the current surface modification research. In this study, ECM-derived components, including laminin, heparin, and SDF-1, were incorporated into the titanium surface with a microporous structure. It was found that the modified surface could effectively control the continuous release of biomolecules. In vitro biocompatibility evaluation results showed that the constructed functional layer could effectively inhibit the activation of platelet adhesion and excessive proliferation of smooth muscle cells. In addition, the modified surface also showed the potential to induce rapid regeneration of vascular endothelium. In vivo animal tests further proved that the modified sample may contribute to inhibiting vascular intimal hyperplasia. This study provided a new approach for the surface biological function modification of Ti-based vascular stents.

Progress on Precise Regulation of Vascular Intimal Repair by a Surface Coating of Vascular Stent.

In the past few decades, drug-eluting stents have made significant contributions to the treatment of coronary heart disease. However, due to the delayed healing of endothelial injuries caused by antiproliferative drugs and insufficient biocompatibility of vascular stent materials, late in-stent thrombosis and restenosis remain major challenges. Surface modification of cardiovascular materials to construct a biological functional layer that can regulate the behavior of blood and vascular cells is an effective way to improve the clinical performance of vascular stents. This paper reviewed the common methods of surface bio-functional modification of cardiovascular materials and especially proposed that take advantage of the new concept of precision medicine, as well as the precise and orderly regulation properties of cardiovascular disease-related gene fragments on vascular biological response behavior, the construction of gene-eluting stents which can in-situ regulate vascular intimal repair at the molecular and genetic level will become an important research direction in the future.

Polysaccharides from Dendrobium officinale inhibit bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis via the TGFß1-Smad2/3 axis.

Polysaccharides from Dendrobium officinale (PDO) have been found to elicit significant benefits for patients with fibrotic diseases. However, there are no reports on treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) using PDO. The aim of this paper was to investigate the therapeutic effects of PDO on IPF and its underlying mechanisms. Our data showed that PDO significantly ameliorated indices for both pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis in a bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis model in rats, which was associated with inactivation of transforming growth factor ß1 (TGFß1)-Smad2/3 signaling pathway. Moreover, PDO effectively blocked TGFß1-induced transformation of rat alveolar epithelial type II cells into myofibroblasts, with the inhibition of total Smad2/3, pSmad2/3, collagen I and fibronectin protein expression in a dose-dependent manner in vitro. Therefore, PDO may represent as a promising candidate biomacromolecule drug for the safe and effective therapy of IPF.