Arginine-grafted porcine pericardium by copolymerization to improve the cytocompatibility, hemocompatibility and anti-calcification properties of bioprosthetic heart valve materials

Bioprosthetic heart valves (BHVs) have been used widely due to the development of transcatheter heart valve replacement technology. However, glutaraldehyde crosslinked pericardium (GA), which is widely used as a leaflet material for BHVs, still has disadvantages, including cytotoxicity, thrombosis, and calcification, which lead to the dysfunction and degeneration of BHVs. Herein, we prepared a methacrylated arginine-grafted BHV through the copolymerization of methacrylated arginine and methacrylated porcine pericardium (PP). Briefly, PP was crosslinked by glutaraldehyde and methacrylated polylysine (pLy-MA) to obtain methacrylated PP (pLy-GA), and the pLy-GA was then copolymerized with methacrylated arginine to prepare methacrylated arginine-grafted PP (pLy-GA-Arg). The introduction of Arg-MA improved the ability of PP to resist platelet adhesion, and compared with GA, platelet adhesion decreased by 78% which exhibited improved antithrombotic properties. pLy-GA-Arg exhibited improved cytocompatibility and the relative proliferation rate of HUVECs increased by 2 times compared with GA. After 60 days of subcutaneous implantation, the calcification degree of pLy-GA-Arg was significantly lower than that of GA (4.37 ± 0.33 μg mg-1versus 157.46 ± 41.74 μg mg-1). The introduction of arginine improved the hemocompatibility and cytocompatibility of PP and reduced its calcification, offering a potential option for BHV fabrication in the future.