Fig. 5

A Strategy for In Vitro Modelling of Vascular Complications: Focus on Diabetic Vasculopathy/Angiopathy. The right panel highlights the requirement of four different cell types for comprehensive modelling of vascular complications. The blue texts (A–D) indicate how each cellular and environmental element is incorporated to generate an intact organoid model of diabetic vasculopathy/angiopathy, elucidating the mechanisms underlying abnormal vascular cell behaviours (pink box). A illustrates the generation of blood vessel organoids from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), enabling the study of mural cell transformation, endothelial mesenchymal transition (EndoMT), and genetic modifications. Also, microfluidic technology allows the introduction of different flow types and facilitates the formation of perfused blood vessel organoids. B demonstrates the simulation of environmental stressors by adding pathological risk factors to the culture media. C shows the incorporation of immune cells in a co-culture fashion or through the addition of pro-inflammatory cytokines. D addresses the ongoing challenge of including organ-specific cell types in the model to induce organ-specific vascular phenotype. EndoMT; endothelial mesenchymal transition