Open Access

ARTICLE

Improving Mechanical Properties of Vitrified Umbilical Arteries with Magnetic Warming

Mengyuan Cao, Yi Xu^*, Yilin Dong

Institute of Biothermal Science & Technology, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China

* Corresponding Author: Yi Xu. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Bioheat Transfer in Micro and Macro Scales)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2021, 17(1), 123-139. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2021.011443

Received 09 May 2020; Accepted 14 December 2020; Issue published 09 February 2021

Abstract

The damage caused by thermal stress during rewarming vitrified biosamples is one of the major obstacles for clinical purposes. Magnetic warming is a highly effective approach to overcome this hurdle and can achieve rapid and spatially homogeneous heating. The current research investigates the effects of magnetic warming on the histological and biomechanical properties of the vitrified umbilical arteries (UAs) through experiments and simulation. The results of experiments show that, for the case of magnetic warming comparing with the conventional water bath, magnetic warming presents better preservation of extracellular matrix (ECM), collagen fibers, elastic fibers, and muscle fibers of the umbilical artery. There is no significant difference between magnetothermal and fresh UAs (p > 0.05) in the elastic modulus and the ultimate stress. The theoretical results reveal that the maximum temperature difference inside the biosample is 1.117 ± 0.649°C, and the maximum thermal stress is 0.026 ± 0.016 MPa. However, for the case of conventional water bath, is 32.342 ± 0.967°C and is 1.453 ± 0.047 MPa. Moreover, we have arrived at the same conclusion by simulation as theoretical calculation have. Therefore, magnetic warming can effectively reduce the thermal stress damage of biological samples during the warming period due to more uniform and rapid warming. These results confirm that magnetothermal can significantly improve the mechanical properties of large size cryopreserved tissues or organs such as UAs.

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Keywords

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