Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) have great potential in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and clinical applications. There is an ever-increasing demand to provide living HUVECs and HUVECs-hydrogel constructs to end users when needed in cell-based therapy and clinical applications. However, current methods to provide living cells and their constructs are mainly continuous culture and cryopreservation, which are high-cost, labor-intensive, time-consuming and inflexible. The research about hypothermic storage of HUVECs and their hydrogel constructs is still limited. Here, we studied the cell survival of HUVECs without encapsulation (W/O Encap) or with encapsulation (alginate, alginate with carboxymethyl chitosan [CMCH]) at 4°C and 25°C during 7 days, respectively. Also, we explored the optimal CMCH concentration for hypothermic storage, which is 0.5% (w/v) at 4°C and 25°C. Moreover, we evaluated the cell attachment after hypothermic storage. Our results enable the hypothermic storage of HUVECs and HUVEC-hydrogel constructs, and facilitate their application in tissue engineering and clinical medicine.

中文翻译：

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人脐静脉内皮细胞及其水凝胶构建体的低温保存。

人脐静脉内皮细胞（HUVEC）在组织工程，再生医学和临床应用中具有巨大潜力。在基于细胞的治疗和临床应用中需要时，向最终用户提供活的HUVEC和HUVECs水凝胶结构的需求不断增长。但是，目前提供活细胞及其构建体的方法主要是连续培养和冷冻保存，它们成本高，劳动强度大，费时且不灵活。关于HUVEC及其水凝胶构建体的低温储存的研究仍然有限。在这里，我们研究了7天内分别在4°C和25°C下未封装（W / O Encap）或封装（藻酸盐，带有羧甲基壳聚糖[CMCH]的藻酸盐）的HUVEC的细胞存活率。也，我们探索了低温保存的最佳CMCH浓度，在4°C和25°C时为0.5％（w / v）。此外，我们评估了低温保存后的细胞附着。我们的结果使HUVEC和HUVEC水凝胶构建体得以低温保存，并促进其在组织工程和临床医学中的应用。