An aortic arch flow loop for the study of hemodynamic-induced endothelial cell injury and inflammation

Abstract

Hemodynamic forces play an important role in maintaining the function and structure of blood vessels. In this work we discuss the design of an in vitro flow loop mimicking the aortic arch that is aimed at studying the response of endothelial cells to geometric curvature and the resulting flow field. The flow system allows for quantitative flow visualization measurements, and for access to the vessel lumen for cell culturing and sampling.