Electrospun nanofibers as a tool for architecture control in engineered cardiac tissue

Abstract

This paper presents an in vitro system for cardiac tissue engineering based on cardiomyocytes cultured on electrospun polymethylglutarimide (PMGI) nanofibrous meshes either imprinted on solid substrate or suspended in space. Special care was taken over the ability to control the tissue architecture. The electrospinning process allowed nano-scale diameter PMGI fibers with different positioning density to be collected in a random or in an aligned way that defines the general configuration of the mesh. Micro-imprinted on solid substrate nanofibers guarantee aligned cell growth, when the distance between them is 30 μm or less. Suspended in 3D space, nanofibers define the overall architecture of the tissue, depending on orientation and positioning density of the nanofibers. As a result, cardiac cells proliferated into contractile tissue filaments, open-worked tissue meshes and continuous anisotropic cell sheets. Alignment of the cells was characterized by elongation of the cell shape and orientation of the α-actin filaments supported by the FFT data. The advantage of this method is its ability to maintain both three-dimensionality and structural anisotropy.