Tissue Engineering 3D Porous Scaffolds Prepared from Electrospun Recombinant Human Collagen (RHC) Polypeptides/Chitosan Nanofibers

Aipeng Deng,Yang Yang,Shimei Du

doi:10.3390/app11115096

Aipeng Deng, Yang Yang + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/app11115096

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Abstract

Electrospinning, the only method that can continuously produce nanofibers, has been widely used to prepare nanofibers for tissue engineering applications. However, electrospinning is not suitable for preparing clinically relevant three-dimensional (3D) nanofibrous scaffolds with hierarchical pore structures. In this study, recombinant human collagen (RHC)/chitosan nanofibers prepared by electrospinning were combined with porous scaffolds produced by freeze drying to fabricate 3D nanofibrous scaffolds. These scaffolds exhibited high porosity (over 80%) and an interconnected porous structure (ranging from sub-micrometers to 200 μm) covered with nanofibers. As confirmed by the characterization results, these scaffolds showed good swelling ability, stability, and adequate mechanical strength, making it possible to use the 3D nanofibrous scaffolds in various tissue engineering applications. In addition, after seven days of cell culturing, NIH 3T3 was infiltrated into the scaffolds while maintaining its morphology and with superior proliferation and viability. These results indicated that the 3D nanofibrous scaffolds hold great promise for tissue engineering applications.

Highlights

Tissue engineering scaffolds should provide adequate three-dimensional (3D) microenvironments for cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, and natural extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition [1]
To prepare the 3D nanofibrous scaffolds, the chitosan/recombinant human collagen (RHC) nanofibrous were homogenized in a 90% ethanol solution to obtain short nanofibers and tiny nanofibrous
Modulus compressive modulus of the uncrosslinked was much lower the uncrosslinked 1%-1 mL scaffold (125 kPa) was much lower than those of the crosslinked than those the All crosslinked scaffolds (p < 0.05). Allincreasing these results demonstrated that inscaffolds

Summary

Introduction

Tissue engineering scaffolds should provide adequate three-dimensional (3D) microenvironments for cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, and natural extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition [1]. Since naturally occurring ECMs are mainly composed of nano-scale collagen fibers, to date, several fabricating methods (e.g., phase separation, self-assembly, and electrospinning) have been applied to prepare biomimetic scaffolds with nanofibrous structures [6,7,8]. Of these methods, electrospinning is the only technique that allows the continuous production of fibers at micro or nanoscales [9]. Electrospinning has attracted great attention because of its material versatility, straightforward nature, and cost-effectiveness [10,11]

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