Endothelium-Mimicking Multifunctional Coating Modified Cardiovascular Stents via a Stepwise Metal-Catechol-(Amine) Surface Engineering Strategy

Stenting is currently the major therapeutic treatment for cardiovascular diseases. However, the nonbiogenic metal stents are inclined to trigger a cascade of cellular and molecular events including inflammatory response, thrombogenic reactions, smooth muscle cell hyperproliferation accompanied by the delayed arterial healing, and poor reendothelialization, thus leading to restenosis along with late stent thrombosis. To address prevalence critical problems, we present an endothelium-mimicking coating capable of rapid regeneration of a competently functioning new endothelial layer on stents through a stepwise metal (copper)-catechol-(amine) (MCA) surface chemistry strategy, leading to combinatorial endothelium-like functions with glutathione peroxidase-like catalytic activity and surface heparinization. Apart from the stable nitric oxide (NO) generating rate at the physiological level (2.2 × 10-10 mol/cm2/min lasting for 60 days), this proposed strategy could also generate abundant amine groups for allowing a high heparin conjugation efficacy up to ∼1 μg/cm2, which is considerably higher than most of the conventional heparinized surfaces. The resultant coating could create an ideal microenvironment for bringing in enhanced anti-thrombogenicity, anti-inflammation, anti-proliferation of smooth muscle cells, re-endothelialization by regulating relevant gene expressions, hence preventing restenosis in vivo. We envision that the stepwise MCA coating strategy would facilitate the surface endothelium-mimicking engineering of vascular stents and be therefore helpful in the clinic to reduce complications associated with stenosis.