The improvement of cell infiltration in an electrospun scaffold with multiple synthetic biodegradable polymers using sacrificial PEO microparticles

Abstract

Electrospinning is a fabrication technique to generate three dimensional scaffolds with a fiber structure that imitates extracellular matrix for tissue engineering constructs. The versatile characteristics of the electrospinning process yields designer scaffolds made of biodegradable polymers or natural proteins with controllable fiber diameters, biodegradation, and mechanical properties. A limitation of conventional electrospun scaffolds is the dense fiber packing with low porosity that leads to poor cell infiltration. Electrospraying sacrificial polyethylene oxide (PEO) microparticles in combination with electrospun scaffolds are a method to increase porosity. We report the effectiveness of electrospraying PEO microparticles to increase porosity of the most commonly used biodegradable polymers: polyglycolic acid (PGA), poly (lactic‐co‐glycolic) acid (PLGA), and polycaprolactone (PCL). The biodegradable polymer electrospun scaffolds with the sacrificial PEO microparticles were found to have improved cell proliferation and infiltration with human fibroblasts compared to conventional electrospun scaffolds. The mechanical properties of the more robust PGA and PLGA had minor changes, but the more elastic PCL was observed to be weaker and less stiff after the removal of the PEO microparticles. Therefore, this study found PEO microparticles can increase porosity and cell infiltration with stable mechanical properties for a wide variety of biodegradable polymers in electrospun scaffolds.

Tissue‐engineered vessel derived from human fibroblasts with an electrospun scaffold

“…The sacrificial PEO microspheres were incorporated to increase the pore size and porosity of the PGA electrospun scaffold. We have previously reported the porosity of an electrospun PGA scaffold increased from 72% with PGA alone to 90% in a composite scaffold after the removal of the PEO microparticles (Hodge & Quint, 2019). The dimensions of the PGA scaffold were 4.5 mm inner diameter, 8 cm length, and 0.7 mm thickness (Figure 2a).…”

“…This study showed the feasibility of an electrospun biodegradable PGA scaffold in combination with a biomimetic culture system to generate a functional tissue‐engineered vessel. A potential limitation of electrospun scaffolds is the dense fiber packing that prevents cell infiltration; hence, electrospraying a sacrificial porogen to increase the porosity and pore size significantly enhanced cell infiltration and matrix formation as the PGA degraded in the bioreactor (Hodge & Quint, 2019; Wang et al, 2013).…”

“…A challenge to conventional electrospinning is the densely packed nanofiber structure with small pore sizes that limits cell infiltration into the scaffold. Sacrificial porogens are an effective method to increase porosity by incorporating during electrospinning, and technically sacrificial porogens are easy to integrate into a standard electrospinning set‐up to provide homogenous distribution of the porogen during electrospinning (Hodge & Quint, 2019; Wang et al, 2013). The tissue‐engineered vessel derived from human fibroblasts was treated by a decellularization process to form an allogeneic vessel.…”

Adsorption of Cu (II) and Cd (II) from Wastewater by Sodium Alginate Modified Materials

“…However, SA does not have sufficient mechanical stability that, in turn, may result in the formation of a gel with low efficiency and damage its elasticity [18]. To respond to this challenge, cross-linking agents such as polyethylene oxides (PEO) are useful [19,20]. PEO is a crystalline thermoplastic water-soluble polymer with the molecular formula of H-(-O-CH 2 -CH 2 -)n-OH.…”

Chitosan biopolymer based nanocomposite hydrogels for removal of methylene blue dye

“…Chitosan is used for the removal of dyes and metals [15,16] as it has active adsorption sites like amino (-NH 2 ) and hydroxyl (-OH) functional groups and metals. However, it has some disadvantages for industrial applications [3], wastewater technologies, such as the too soft structure, which creates problems [17][18][19], its high solubility in the organic solvent, high swelling percent in water, low mechanical strength, and low surface area [20]. Many studies have been applied to improve CS properties and efficiency [21][22][23].…”