Abstract
Melt electrospinning writing has been emerged as a promising technique in the field of tissue engineering, with the capability of fabricating controllable and highly ordered complex three-dimensional geometries from a wide range of polymers. This three-dimensional (3D) printing method can be used to fabricate scaffolds biomimicking extracellular matrix of replaced tissue with the required mechanical properties. However, controlled and homogeneous cell attachment on melt electrospun fibers is a challenge. The combination of melt electrospinning writing with other tissue engineering approaches, called hybrid biomanufacturing, has introduced new perspectives and increased its potential applications in tissue engineering. In this review, principles and key parameters, challenges, and opportunities of melt electrospinning writing, and particularly, recent approaches and materials in this field are introduced. Subsequently, hybrid biomanufacturing strategies are presented for improved biological and mechanical properties of the manufactured porous structures. An overview of the possible hybrid setups and applications, future perspective of hybrid processes, guidelines, and opportunities in different areas of tissue/organ engineering are also highlighted.
Highlights
Scaffolds are considered as one of the key elements in tissue engineering (TE), providing a porous three-dimensional (3D) support structure for cells [1,2,3,4]
This study revealed that hydrophobic nature of fibers and geometry of the scaffold strongly affect the interference between matrix and reinforcing fibers, which is reflected by cellular behavior
The ability to utilize a large number of polymers and their blends has led to an increasing number of studies that are related to melt electrospinning writing (MEW) in recent years
Summary
Scaffolds are considered as one of the key elements in tissue engineering (TE), providing a porous three-dimensional (3D) support structure for cells [1,2,3,4]. By a further increase of the applied voltage, the filament at the spinneret tip turns into a conical shape jet stream called Taylor cone [29,30,31] Several challenges, such as toxicity of solvents, solubility, and miscibility of polymers, instability of mass flow, and evaporation rates of the solvents have been already addressed in the literature [29,32,33,34]. The polymer melt with much higher viscosity and lower conductivity lead to more stable jet during the deposition, which makes it easier to obtain a controlled-shape filament This would often result in larger fiber diameters and porosities in ME as compared with SE, which can be positively considered in special cases, since small pore size of electrospun fibers from SE might be a challenge for cell adhesion and cell migration [45]. The necessity of implementation of MEW as a part of a hybrid approach and its potential for scaffold fabrication is discussed
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