Study of a novel coating strategy for coronary stents: evaluation of stainless metallic steel coated with VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody in vitro

Abstract

Objective: To access the cytotoxicity and the effect on the endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) differentiation of stainless steel sheets simultaneously coated with VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody.

Materials and methods: 316L stainless steel sheets (diameter 6 mm, thickness 1 mm) were divided into the D-H (Bare metal), D-(H-V)10 (VEGF-coated metal) and D-(H-V)10-A (VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody co-coated metal) groups. The cytotoxicity effect of the three groups was measured using MTT assay. Percentage of EPC positive for CD34, CD133 and KDR were detected by flow cytometric assay. Endothelial cells positive for CD31 and VE-Cadherin were also detected by flow cytometric assay.

Results: The percentages of isolated cells positive for CD133, CD34 and KDR were 89.9%, 91.3%, and 90.4%, respectively, suggesting that the EPCs were successfully isolated. MTT results showed that the stainless steel sheets coated with VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody have less toxicity on seeded EPCs than single VEGF coating or bare metal. We further found that with VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody co-coating could significantly promote the differentiation of EPCs in vitro when compared with that of single VEGF coating and bare metal.

Conclusions: Our study provided a preliminary evaluation of metallic steel sheet coated with VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody in vitro. Our findings suggest that simultaneously coating the stents with VEGF and anti-CD34 antibody might be a novel research direction for facilitating re-endothelialization in order to reduce ISR after stent implantation.