Passive biaxial mechanical behavior of newborn mouse aorta with and without elastin

Aortic wall material properties are needed for computational models and for comparisons across developmental and disease states. There has been abundant work in comparing aortic material properties across disease states, but limited work across developmental states. We performed passive biaxial mechanical testing on newborn mouse aorta with (Eln^+/+) and without (Eln^−/−) elastin. Elastin provides elasticity to the aortic wall and is necessary for survival beyond birth in the mouse. Mechanically functional elastin is challenging to create in vitro and so Eln^−/− aorta can be a comparison for tissue engineered arteries with limited elastin amounts. We found that a traditional arterial strain energy function provided reasonable fits to newborn mouse aorta and generally predicted lower material constants in Eln^−/− compared to Eln^+/+ aorta. At physiologic pressures, the circumferential stresses and moduli trended lower in Eln^−/− compared to Eln^+/+ aorta. Increased blood pressure in Eln^−/− mice helps to alleviate the differences in stresses and moduli. Increased blood pressure also serves to partially offload stresses in the isotropic compared to the anisotropic component of the wall. The baseline material parameters can be used in computational models of growth and remodeling to improve understanding of developmental mechanobiology and tissue engineering strategies.