Fig. 3: Acute blood perfusion studies to assess vascular patency in BELs.

a Schematic of in vitro blood perfusion circuit. 37 °C porcine blood is perfused at 12 mmHg through the PV with a peristaltic pump and returned to a reservoir through the IVC. b Summary plots of pressures and flow rates measured over 60 minutes during in vitro blood perfusion studies using HUVEC only, hepatocyte only, or co-culture BELs. Freshly explanted (Native) porcine livers and decellularized scaffolds (Decell) were included as benchmarks for idealized perfusion and rapid thrombosis, respectively. c Violin plots summarizing BEL flow rates from (b) after 30 min of perfusion. d Schematic of ex vivo blood perfusion model. A synthetic perfusion circuit is established by cannulating the PV and sIVC within an anesthetized pig. Blood flow is diverted from the animal’s cannulated PV to the BEL PV and returned from the BEL sIVC into the animal’s cannulated iIVC. e Real-time angiography time lapse imaging following contrast infusion. Imaging was performed after 30 min of continuous blood perfusion. PV—portal vein; BEL—bioengineered liver; sIVC—suprahepatic inferior vena cava, iIVC—infrahepatic inferior vena cava.