Conformational changes of exogenous deposited fibronectin on decellularized aortic conduits after implantation

Abstract

Fibronectin is an abundant and ubiquitous extracellular matrix component that regulates a wide range of cell functions by directly interacting with cell surface integrin receptors. In a prior study, we observed that fibronectin can accelerate the autologous cellular repopulation of implanted decellularized grafts, enhancing their adhesion capacity and biocompatibility, through fibronectin fibrillogenesis. The supportive effect of deposited fibronectin was shown to be dissimilar in different regions of implanted decellularized grafts. This led us to question whether there is any difference in conformation of fibronectin deposited on the luminal and adventitial surfaces of decellularized aortic conduits after implantation. In this study, we doubly labelled fibronectin with a fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) pair and use this to analyse differences in conformational changes of adsorbed fibronectin at different sites of the decellularized aortic conduits.

Keywords

• conformational changes
• fibronectin
• shear stress