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. 2019 Oct 11;10:4620. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12545-3

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© The Author(s) 2019

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Fig. 7 — Characterisation and utility of tubular scaffolds with circumferentially aligned microchannels in vascular regeneration at 3 months. a Schematic illustration of implantation of the tubular vascular ECM-C scaffolds for artery regeneration of the rat abdominal artery defects. b No kinking formed when the tubular ECM-C scaffolds were folded at 180°. c, d Micro CT and SEM images showing the macroscopic and microscopic appearance of tubular ECM-C scaffolds with circumferentially aligned microchannels observed from the cross section. e The ECM-C vascular scaffolds can withstand the blood pressure after implantation and maintains for 3 months, and remodel into neo-artery, integrating with the host artery. The control scaffolds formed aneurysm at 3 months. The green arrowheads represent the suture line of the anastomosis. The white arrowheads represent the aneurysm formation site. f The patency was evaluated by Laser Doppler ultrasound imaging. The red arrowheads indicate the position of ECM-C guided neoartery. g The cross-sectional morphology of ECM-C guided neoartery was close to native artery under the stereomicroscope. h Examination of the physiological functions of neo-artery revealed obvious sensitivity to vasodilators and vasoconstrictors, which is similar to native artery. The functional signals of control scaffolds were undetectable (n = 3 animals per group). i Immunofluorescence double staining showed the distribution of endothelial cells (vWF, red) and vascular smooth muscle cells (α-SMA, green) in native artery, ECM-C guided neo-artery and control scaffolds. White dashed lines indicate the border of the scaffolds. Red arrowheads indicated the regenerated VSMC along the microchannels. j Comparison of the mechanical properties of neo-artery and native artery including maximum stress, elastic modulus, and elongation at break (from left to right) (n = 3 animals per group). k Immunofluorescence staining showing the distribution of collagen I and III, elastin and laminin in ECM-C guided neoartery and native artery. White dashed lines indicate the border of the ECM-C scaffolds. Red arrowheads represent the deposited ECM components within the microchannels. Bar heights and error bars represent means ± s.e.m. (t-test). Statistical analysis (ns = no significance). Scale bar: c, 500 μm; d, 200 μm; g, 1 mm; i, k, 50 μm