Abstract
Collagen hydrogel is a popular extracellular matrix (ECM) material in regenerative medicine and has an isotropic structure. In contrast, native ECM has an anisotropic structure. Electrospinning of collagen dissolved in organic solvents is widely used for fabricating anisotropic collagen nanofibres; however, such fibres are water-soluble and require cross-linking before use as scaffolds for cell culture. Herein, electrospinning using a core-shell nozzle was employed to spin an aqueous acidic solution of collagen and encapsulate it within a shell of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). Subsequently, the core collagen was gelled, and the shell PVP was washed away using a basic ethanol solution to yield anisotropic collagen hydrogel nanofibres. Immunostaining and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed that the obtained fibres were composed of collagen, and surface PVP was removed completely. Circular dichroism measurements confirmed that the fibres exhibited the triple helical structure characteristic of collagen. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells cultured on the collagen hydrogel fibres were oriented along the fibre direction. Hence, this method is suitable for fabricating fibrous anisotropic collagen hydrogels without chemical and thermal cross-linking, and can facilitate the development of safe medical materials with anisotropy similar to that of native ECM.
Highlights
Collagen, a primary component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), exists ubiquitously in tissues such as skin, blood vessels, and tendons
The collagen in the core was subjected to gelation through incubation in a basic solution, and the PVP shell was removed by washing with water to obtain collagen hydrogel fibres without having to use chemical or thermal cross-linking
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations show that uniform fibres with a diameter of 461 ± 129 nm were obtained (Figs 1b and S3b)
Summary
A primary component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), exists ubiquitously in tissues such as skin, blood vessels, and tendons. Electrospinning is a facile method for obtaining anisotropic nanofibre bundles In this method, a high voltage is applied to a polymer solution, which is injected through a needle towards a grounded collector. (TFE) must be used to obtain a highly viscous collagen solution[34,35,36], because it is known that the viscosity of the polymer solution is a determining factor during the electrospinning process[37,38] These solvents interfere with the hydrogen bonds between the collagen molecules and destroy the ordered triple helical structure[34]. Aligned fibres could be obtained by rotating the collector in a single direction at a high speed This is the first study to report that collagen hydrogel nanofibres insoluble in water can be formed by the electrospinning method without using any cross-linkers. Collagen hydrogel fibres can be bundled to construct tissue-mimicking materials with an anisotropic higher-order structure, such as artificial blood vessels, for medical applications
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