Object: Atherosclerosis and heart diseases are still the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The lack of suitable autologous grafts has produced a need for artificial ones, which suffer from shortcomings such as rejection and chronic inflammation. Tissue engineered blood vessels, have emerged as solutions to some of these difficulties and may overcome many problems. In this study, a decellularized aortic scaffold was prepared and seeded with adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells (Ad-MSCs) in order to investigate the inductive effects of the scaffold on cellular behaviors. Methods: In order to make a decellularized aortic scaffold, ascending part of ovine aorta was dissected and its surrounding adherent tissues were omitted. Aorta was cut into 5 x 5 mm pieces, which were subsequently treated by cyanogen bromide for 19 h to remove cells and collagen; and then preincubated overnight in cell culture medium. Cell seeding was performed by suspending 5 x 105 human Ad-MSCs in 5 ml of cell culture medium for each scaffold. Culture medium was changed twice weekly. Samples were collected for study after 7, 14, 21 and 28 days of culture. Cell seeded scaffolds were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin and embedded in paraffin. Sections were stained with hematoxylin- eosin and orcein- pick indigo carmine- hematoxylin. Results: Histological studies, revealed that cells and collagen fibers were omitted successfully from the scaffolds. Mesenchymal stem cells attached and penetrated into the aortic scaffolds. Moreover, cellular differentiation into probably fibroblast and myocyte and also angiogenesis were observed in stained sections. Conclusion: Our results indicated that this natural scaffold prepared by treatment with cyanogen bromide, has inductive effects on cell behaviors such as migration, adhesiveness, and probably differentiation of Ad-MSCs. However, further studies are required to confirm the results.

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