Table 5.

Bioreactor Designs for Vascular Tissue Engineering

	Rotating bioreactors	Perfusion bioreactors
Mechanism of vascularization	More efficient distribution of culture medium throughout construct	Mimic flow of vessels in vivo to improve vascular cell viability and function
Tissues and cell types cocultured	Bone, cartilage, and cardiac tissue; retinal and mesenchymal stem cells	Bone and cardiac tissue, small arteries; mesenchymal stem cells, SMCs, cardiomyocytes
Quantitative measurement of nutrient and oxygen diffusion	Limited → dye-protein permeability, bulk media metabolism analysis	Limited → dye tracers of perfusion, media metabolism analysis, modeling
Points of functional anastomosis	None, requires ingrowth of host vessels	Yes, for arteries grown in vitro
References	74–79	73, 80–88