Tissue engineering of aortic valve leaflets

Owing to the complexity of the aortic heart valve, there has not been any ideal replacement valve available. A pioneering in vitro method using human mesenchymal stem cells on electrospun polyurethane scaffolds has been developed which resulted in production of complete extracellular matrix (ECM) at the proportions equivalent to the native aortic valve leaflets. The significance of this work is its ability to generate the ECM along with cell differentiation in a very short duration using autologous stem cells from the patients. Thus these valves can be used for valve repair and can be further studied for remodelling in vivo.