Abstract
We aimed to capture the outstanding mechanical properties of meshes, manufactured using textile technologies, in thin biodegradable biphasic tissue-engineered scaffolds through encapsulation of meshes into porous structures formed from the same polymer. Our novel manufacturing process used thermally induced phase separation (TIPS), with ethylene carbonate (EC) as the solvent, to encapsulate a poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) mesh into a porous PLGA network. Biphasic scaffolds (1 cm × 4 cm × 300 μm) were manufactured by immersing strips of PLGA mesh in 40 °C solutions containing 5% PLGA in EC, supercooling at 4 °C for 4 min, triggering TIPS by manually agitating the supercooled solution, and lastly eluting EC into 4 °C Milli-Q water. EC processing was rapid and did not compromise mesh tensile properties. Biphasic scaffolds exhibited a tensile strength of 40.7 ± 2.2 MPa, porosity of 94%, pore size of 16.85 ± 3.78 μm, supported HaCaT cell proliferation, and degraded in vitro linearly over the first ∼3 weeks followed by rapid degradation over the following three weeks. The successful integration of textile-type meshes yielded scaffolds with exceptional mechanical properties. This thin, porous, high-strength scaffold is potentially suitable for use in dermal wound repair or repair of tubular organs.
Highlights
When designing and manufacturing scaffolds for dermal tissue repair, there are an array of biological and mechanical factors to consider
Manufacturing optimisation During manufacturing process optimisation, we identified that key variables were (1) exposing the system to a 4 °C quench temperature, (2) degassing the poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) + ethylene carbonate (EC) solution, (3) the use of glass as the mould material to cast the biphasic PLGAmesh+thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) scaffolds, and (4) prewarming scaffold components and assembling the scaffold at 40 °C
When nucleation was initiated at 24 °C, it is likely that the PLGA + EC system was transitioning through the metastable region and subsequently TIPS proceeded via the thermodynamic mechanism of nucleation and growth (NG)
Summary
When designing and manufacturing scaffolds for dermal tissue repair, there are an array of biological and mechanical factors to consider. A challenging but critical provision for dermal scaffolds is a thin template material that is flexible, can withstand significant tensile loads, can support cells (delivery and integration with host tissue), and possesses a degradation profile that is compatible with wound healing [1, 2]. Centuries of textile mass production have led to versatile processes that can yield meshes with a wide range of dimensions, and these processes offer greater scalability than more recent scaffold manufacturing processes, such as electrospinning [10]. A knit mesh structure is potentially ideal for dermal tissue repair because of the tuneable tensile properties, as well as compatibility of knit structures with suturing to adjacent tissue. Augmenting existing biodegradable meshes with finer secondary structures could provide support for the delivery and growth of cells across meshes and extend their utility in dermal and other tissue repair applications
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