Engineering the Composition of Microfibers to Enhance the Remodeling of a Cell-Free Vascular Graft.

Fang Huang,Shyam Patel,Xuefeng Qiu,Song Li,Yu-Fang Hsieh

doi:10.3390/nano11061613

Abstract

The remodeling of vascular grafts is critical for blood vessel regeneration. However, most scaffold materials have limited cell infiltration. In this study, we designed and fabricated a scaffold that incorporates a fast-degrading polymer polydioxanone (PDO) into the microfibrous structure by means of electrospinning technology. Blending PDO with base polymer decreases the density of electrospun microfibers yet did not compromise the mechanical and structural properties of the scaffold, and effectively enhanced cell infiltration. We then used this technique to fabricate a tubular scaffold with heparin conjugated to the surface to suppress thrombosis, and the construct was implanted into the carotid artery as a vascular graft in animal studies. This graft significantly promoted cell infiltration, and the biochemical cues such as immobilized stromal cell-derived factor-1α further enhanced cell recruitment and the long-term patency of the grafts. This work provides an approach to optimize the microfeatures of vascular grafts, and will have broad applications in scaffold design and fabrication for regenerative engineering.

Highlights

IntroductionMiguel SantosTissue engineering is a fast-growing field centered on creating equivalents to native tissue for the replacement of trauma- or disease-damaged tissue or organs [1,2,3,4]
Miguel SantosTissue engineering is a fast-growing field centered on creating equivalents to native tissue for the replacement of trauma- or disease-damaged tissue or organs [1,2,3,4]
The loss the stromal cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) passively absorbed onto the plasma-treated grafts was less stable and released in ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is not desirable as UTS correlates with burst strength, these results indicate that relatively rapidly

Summary

Introduction

Miguel SantosTissue engineering is a fast-growing field centered on creating equivalents to native tissue for the replacement of trauma- or disease-damaged tissue or organs [1,2,3,4]. Many commercial vascular grafts made with inert materials have been developed over the past decade, such as Dacron (polyethylene terephthalate; PET) and Teflon (expanded polytetrafluoroethylene; ePTFE) Due to their surface thrombogenicity, suboptimal elasticity and compliance, these vascular grafts are prone to acute thrombus formation and intimal hyperplasia, resulting in an unsatisfactory in vivo performance in terms of patency, despite the presence of heparin coating [9,10,11]. These vascular grafts are limited to large-caliber vessels and the development of successful small-diameter vascular grafts (

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Conclusion