Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases, including coronary artery and peripheral vascular pathologies, are leading causes of mortality. As an alternative to autografts, prosthetic grafts have been developed to reduce the death rate. This study presents the development and characterization of bilayer vascular grafts with appropriate structural and biocompatibility properties. A polymer blend of recombinant human collagen (RHC) peptides and polycaprolactone (PCL) was used to build the inner layer of the graft by electrospinning and co-electrospinning the water-soluble polyethylene oxide (PEO) as sacrificial material together with PCL to generate the porous outer layer. The mechanical test demonstrated the bilayer scaffold’s appropriate mechanical properties as compared with the native vascular structure. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) showed enhanced adhesion to the lumen after seeding on nanoscale fibers. Meanwhile, by enhancing the porosity of the microfibrous outer layer through the removal of PEO fibers, rat smooth muscle cells (A7r5) could proliferate and infiltrate the porous layer easily.
Highlights
(PEO) as sacrificial material together with PCL to generate the porous outer layer
These cells were found to be capable of penetrating the porous layer by increasing the culturing time. These results demonstrated that when recombinant human collagen (RHC) was added to scaffolding, the biocompatibility increased, cell adhesion improved, and cell proliferation improved, which is similar to previous reports [53]
To model the multilayer morphology of native vasculature, a bilayered scaffold with fibrous inner layer and porous outer layer was developed by using electrospinning the RHC and PCL
Summary
(PEO) as sacrificial material together with PCL to generate the porous outer layer. The mechanical test demonstrated the bilayer scaffold’s appropriate mechanical properties as compared with the native vascular structure. Electrospinning allows for fabrication of nano- to micro-scale fibrous matrices and for control of the composition, structure, and biomechanical properties of scaffolds [15,16] This technique fabricates fibrous matrices from various natural polymers like collagen [17,18,19] and fibrin [20], as well as a wide variety of synthetic polymers like poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) [19,21], poly (L-lactide) (PLLA) [22], and poly (D-lactide). A natural polymer, such as collagen, which has a biological origin, is well suited for various in vivo applications It promotes cell adhesion and growth by mimicking the key mechanobiological and biochemical features of the native ECM. A high-level expression strain was selected from the transformants for high-cell-density fermentation [30]
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