Engineered microvessel networks -- Longitudinal transcriptomic profiling validates chip-grown tissues as a robust model for studying vasculature

Stromal cell identity in microfluidic microvessel networks shapes distinct vascular architectures and transcriptional trajectories, showing support-cell provenance is a key context-of-use variable.

• Why it matters: Organ-on-Chip vascular models need validation for specific contexts of use, but support cells are often treated as interchangeable, leaving uncertainty about what provenance controls.
• What they did: The study combined microfluidic MVNs with longitudinal bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing to track how cell provenance alters engineered vascular phenotypes and endothelial specialization.
• The result: Primary human pancreatic microvascular endothelial cells did not form stable perfusable networks, but adding 10% HUVECs or BOECs rescued self-assembly; single-cell data linked rescued networks to specialized endothelial states and FLRT2--UNC5B signalling in pericyte-like HUVECs.

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