Modification and Characterization of Polyethylene Glycolated Decellularized Porcine Aortic Heart Valve with Osteoprotegerin

Objective: To construct decellularized porcine aortic valve (DPAV) covalently modified with osteoprotegerin (OPG) as new prosthetic heart valve. Methods: We first coupled DPAV (n = 6 per treatment) with polyethylene glycol (PEG) using 4-arm-PEG-acrylate and then covalently linked them to OPG. Hematoxylin-eosin (HE), Van-Greson (VG) staining, scanning electron-microscopy and immunofluorescence microscopy were performed to determine the decellularization. Cytotoxicity and mechanic properties of the engineered valves were tested. Results: Histomorphological characterizations showed that the valves were fully decellularized and the fiber structures were intact. After the crosslinking, the fiber structures were more compact. The optimal and most cost-effective OPG reaction was run at 500 ng/ml for 2 h for a valve leaflet of 1 cm x 1 cm in size. Immunofluorescence assay showed that OPG was successfully linked to the valve, resulting in engineered valves with similar cell proliferation ability and no cytotoxicity. The mechanical properties of the engineered valve were also similar to those of unmodified valve. Conclusion: Our work demonstrates that we have successfully prepared OPG-modified decellularized valve with potential clinical applications.