Vitro White Blood Cell - Adhesion Of Endothelial Cells Dynamic Model And Its Quantitative Methods To Establish

The important role of endothelial cells in cardiovascular disease, inflammation and atherosclerosis has been realized. Recently, most researches of Biomedical Engineering have been focused on the functions of endothelial cells related with diseases. Especially the relationship between cardiovascular system and endothelial cells effects under the hemodynamic shear stress, the frictional force acting on the endothelial cell surface as a result of blood flow, was concerned most nowadays.Based on the culture of endothelial cells and cellular microfluorescence image processing technique, a new method was developed to study the adhesion between endothelial cells and leukocytes under shear stress by simulating the blood flow in vitro. The whole system consisted of flow chamber subsystem and cellular microfluorescence imaging & image processing subsystem. Employing inverse microfluorescence imaging and image processing technique, the interaction between leukocytes and endothelial cells under flow condition, which was produced by flow chamber and syringe pump, was studied quantificationally. Additionally the anti-adhesive effect of dexamethasone was analyzed. Moreover, with application of some image processing technique, such as the mathematical morphological method and image segment technique, a software was designed to the recognition, counting of leukocyte and the measurement of leukocytes' rolling velocity, so that the adhesion between endothelial cells and leukocytes was described objectively and quantificationally. This flow model in vitro and the corresponding quantitative analysis method could be useful for the future studies on the interaction of endothelial cells with blood cells and on the mechanism of cardiovascular disease, such as inflammation and atherosclerosis.