Abstract
Electrospinning is an attractive fabrication process providing a cost-effective and straightforward technic to make extra-cellular matrix (ECM) mimicking scaffolds that can be used to replace or repair injured tissues and organs. Synthetic polymers as poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly (ethylene oxide terephthalate)-poly(butylene terephthalate) (PEOT/PBT) have been often used to produce scaffolds due to their good processability, mechanical properties, and suitable biocompatibility. While synthetic polymers can mimic the physical features of native ECM, natural polymers like alginate are better suited to recapitulate its hydrated state or introduce functional groups that are recognized by cells (e.g., –NH2). Thus, this study aims at creating electrospun meshes made of blended synthetic and natural polymers for tissue engineering applications. Polyethylene oxide (PEO), PCL, and PEOT/PBT were used as a carrier of Alginate. Scaffolds were electrospun at different flow rates and distances between spinneret and collector (air gap), and the resulting meshes were characterized in terms of fiber morphology, diameter, and mesh inter-fiber pore size. The fiber diameter increased with increasing flow rate, while there was no substantial influence of the air gap. On the other hand, the mesh pore size increased with increasing air gap, while the effect of flow rate was not significant. Cross-linking and washing of alginate electrospun scaffolds resulted in smaller fiber diameter. These newly developed scaffolds may find useful applications for tissue engineering strategies as they resemble physical and chemical properties of tissue ECM. Human Dermal Fibroblasts were cultured on PCL and PCL/Alginate scaffolds in order to create a dermal substitute.
Highlights
The paradigm of tissue engineering is the regeneration of tissues and organs using cells and biomaterial-based approaches alone or in combination, for the replacement, or repair of damaged native tissues
Fibers presented a smooth morphology and varied drastically in size depending on the presence or not of synthetic polymers as carriers of alginate
No significant effect of the flow rate was observed on fiber diameter, while an increase in air gap generally increased the fiber diameter
Summary
The paradigm of tissue engineering is the regeneration of tissues and organs using cells and biomaterial-based approaches alone or in combination, for the replacement, or repair of damaged native tissues. Electrospinning (ESP) is an electrostatically driven technology able to produce scaffolds that can mimic the architecture (geometry, morphology, and/or topography) as well as physicochemical properties of extracellular matrix (ECM) in a simple manner with reduced associated costs (Mengyan Li et al, 2005). It is a highly flexible method of producing continuous fibers with diameters within the micron to sub-micron range out of a wide range of materials comprising natural and synthetic polymers, composites and ceramics (Cao et al, 2009). Due to the versatility of this technique, electrospun scaffolds have already been applied in several areas of tissue engineering including cardiovascular (Heydarkhan-Hagvall et al, 2008), musculoskeletal (Li et al, 2007), and neural tissue engineering (Yang et al, 2004; Nisbet et al, 2007), as well as to study how to control stem cell activity (Li et al, 2005; Suwantong et al, 2007)
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