Mimicking Angiogenesis in vitro: Three-dimensional Co-culture of Vascular Endothelial Cells and Perivascular Cells in Collagen Type I Gels

Markus Auler; Lena Pitzler; Ernst Pöschl; Zhigang Zhou; Bent Brachvogel

doi:10.21769/BioProtoc.2247

Mimicking Angiogenesis in vitro: Three-dimensional Co-culture of Vascular Endothelial Cells and Perivascular Cells in Collagen Type I Gels

Bio Protoc. 2017 Apr 20;7(8):e2247. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.2247.

Authors

Markus Auler^{1

2}, Lena Pitzler^{1

3}, Ernst Pöschl³, Zhigang Zhou^{3

4}, Bent Brachvogel^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Medical Faculty, Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Experimental Neonatology, Cologne, Germany.
² Medical Faculty, Center for Biochemistry, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
³ Biomedical Research Centre, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, UK.
⁴ Medical Faculty, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, UK.

Abstract

Angiogenesis defines the process of formation of new vascular structures form existing blood vessels, involved during development, repair processes like wound healing but also linked to pathological changes. During angiogenic processes, endothelial cells build a vascular network and recruit perivascular cells to form mature, stable vessels. Endothelial cells and perivascular cells secret and assemble a vascular basement membrane and interact via close cell-cell contacts. To mimic these processes in vitro we have developed a versatile three-dimensional culture system where perivascular cells (PVC) are co-cultured with human umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells (HUVEC) in a collagen type I gel. This co-culture system can be used to determine biochemical and cellular processes during neoangiogenic events with a wide range of analyses options.

Keywords: Angiogenesis; Co-culture; Collagen gel; Endothelial cells; Pericytes; Perivascular cells.