Spatiotemporal remodeling of embryonic aortic arch: stress distribution, microstructure, and vascular growth in silico

The microstructure for mature vessels has been investigated in detail, while there is limited information about the embryonic stages, in spite of their importance in the prognosis of congenital heart defects. It is hypothesized that the embryonic vasculature represents a disorganized but dynamic soft tissue, which rapidly evolves toward a specialized multi-cellular vascular structure under mechanical loading. Here the microstructural evolution process of the embryonic pharyngeal aortic arch structure was simulated using an in ovo validated long-term growth and remodeling computational model, implemented as an in-house FEBio plug-in. Optical coherence tomography-guided servo-null pressure measurements are assigned as boundary conditions through the critical embryonic stages. The accumulation of key microstructural constituents was recorded through zoom confocal microscopy for all six embryonic arch arteries simultaneously. The total amount and the radial variation slope of the collagen along the arch wall thickness in different arch types and for different embryonic times, with different dimension scales, were normalized and compared statistically. The arch growth model shows that the stress levels around the lumen boundary increase from \(\approx 270 \;{\text{Pa}}\) (Stage 18) to a level higher than \(\approx 600 \;{\text{Pa}}\) (Stage 24), depending on matrix constituent production rates, while the homeostatic strain level is kept constant. The statistical tests show that although the total collagen levels differentiate among bilateral positions of the same arch, the shape coefficient of the matrix microstructural gradient changes with embryonic time, proving radial localization, in accordance with numerical model results. In vivo cell number (DAPI) and vascular endothelial growth factor distributions followed similar trends.