Functional non-glutaraldehyde treated porcine pericardium for anti-coagulation, anti-calcification, and endothelial proliferation bioprosthetic heart valves

In the last decade, the number of transcatheter heart valve replacement for severe heart valve disease has increased exponentially. Although the bioprosthetic artificial heart valve (BHV) has similar fluid dynamics performance to the original heart valve compared with mechanical heart valve so that there is no need to take long-term anticoagulant drugs to prevent thromboembolism, transcatheter BHV replacement are still at risk for thrombosis during the first few months according to the clinical data. However, the use of antithrombotic drugs can also increase the risk of bleeding. Therefore, it is particularly important to improve the anticoagulant properties for the BHV itself. In this work, a kind of non-glutaraldehyde cross-linked BHV material with excellent antithrombotic ability has been prepared from carboxylated oxazolidine treated porcine pericardium (consisting of collagen, elastin and glycoprotein) with the further graft of the anticoagulant heparin sodium via hydrophilic modified chitosan. Along with the similar mechanical properties and collagen stability comparable to the glutaraldehyde cross-linked porcine pericardium (PP), these functional non-glutaraldehyde cross-linked PPs exhibit better biocompatibility, promoted endothelial proliferation and superior anti-calcification ability. More importantly, excellent anticoagulant activity can be observed in the hematological experiments in vivo and in vitro. In summary, these excellent performances make these functional non-glutaraldehyde cross-linked PPs great potentialities in the BHV applications.