Hydrogel-Assisted Brain Transplantation of HOXA3-Expressing Endothelial Progenitor Cells for Brain Repair After Stroke

Overview

Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the United States and the fifth leading cause of death worldwide. An ischemic stroke occurs when a blockage cuts off the blood supply in the brain, leaving behind an empty cavity. While the severity of stroke may be mitigated using tissue plasminogen activator, a chemical dissolvent, or mechanically retrieving the blood clot with endovascular stents, there are no FDA-approved treatments that completely remove the resultant neurological deficits. These limitations urge the need to explore therapeutic solutions outside conventional practices in neuroscience. It has been recently found that post-stroke angiogenesis plays a major role in endogenous repair mechanisms. Additionally, HOXA3, a gene expressed during embryonic development, has been shown to assist in the rapid development of a vascular network. Here, we propose to engineer HOXA3-expressing endothelial progenitor cells and hypothesize that it will increase vascular sprouting and therefore enhance brain repair. To evaluate the impact of HOXA3 on endothelial progenitor cells, an optimized three-dimensional engineered system was used to observe and promote angiogenesis in vitro using Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) coated on dextran beads that have been suspended in a fibrin scaffold. Two groups were tested: HUVECs and HOXA3-expressing HUVECs. It was found that HOXA3-expressing HUVECs showed enhanced vascular area, longer sprouts, and a higher degree of anastomosis, or connection between blood vessels. These findings support the hypothesis that HOXA3 creates a more robust vascular plexus, advancing understanding of the therapeutic potential of HOXA3 on stem cell-based treatments for stroke.

Awards (1)

• University of Arizona: Renewal Tuition Scholarship

Competition history

• ISEF 2023 Biomedical Engineering · Entry ENBM021 · Dallas, Texas, United States

Resources

• ISEF abstract page ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.