Towards Bioinspired Meniscus-Regenerative Scaffolds: Engineering a Novel 3D Bioprinted Patient-Specific Construct Reinforced by Biomimetically Aligned Nanofibers

Abstract

Introduction: Three of the main requirements that remain major challenges in tissue engineering of the knee meniscus are to engineer scaffolds with compatible anatomical shape, good mechanical properties, and microstructure able to mimic the architecture of the extracellular matrix (ECM). In this context, we presented a new biofabrication strategy to develop a three-dimensional (3D) meniscus-regenerative scaffold with custom-made macroscopic size and microarchitecture bioinspired by the organization of structural fibers of native tissue ECM. Methods: The concept was based on the combination of bioprinted cell-laden hydrogel (type 1 collagen) reinforced by multilayers of biomimetically aligned electrospun nanofibrous mats (polycaprolactone/carbon nanotubes, PCL/CNT), using a patient-specific 3D digital meniscus model reconstructed from MRI data by free and open-source software. Results:The results showed that the incorporation of aligned nanofibers sheets between the hydrogel layers enhanced the scaffold's structural integrity and shape fidelity compared to the nanofiber-free collagen hydrogel. Furthermore, mechanical compression tests demonstrated that the presence of nanofiber layers significantly improved the mechanical properties of the bioprinted construct. Importantly, the introduction of PCL/CNT nanofibrous mats between the layers of the bioprinted collagen hydrogel did not negatively affect cell viability, in which mesenchymal stem cells remained viable even after 7 days of culture within the scaffold. Conclusion: Overall, these findings evidence that this bioengineering approach offers a promising strategy for fabricating biomimetic meniscus scaffolds for tissue engineering.

Application of Tissue Engineered Nanomaterials in Meniscus Sports Injury Repair

“…As shown in Figure 3 : The static left thigh angle value converges to a certain value and the corresponding angular velocity value and angular acceleration value are almost zero. The estimation results of this model are consistent with the motion law of straight leg raising for knee joint motion ( Silva et al, 2018 ; Stocco et al, 2022 ). At the same time, the variance of the state estimation error shown in the figure is very small, which means that the EKF can better estimate the state of the model from the observable short time series.…”

“…In this paper, the extended Kalman algorithm and the unscented Kalman algorithm not only estimate the state variables in the model, but also filter the acceleration signal ( Stocco et al, 2022 ). In order to verify the denoising performance of the EKF and UKF algorithms for acceleration signals.…”

A comparative study on various cell sources for constructing tissue-engineered meniscus

“…Previously, we have proven that electrospun nanofiber yarn scaffolds provide a good microenvironment for cells and boost cell proliferation and assembly into threedimensional cell-matrix constructs (Wu et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2014;Li et al, 2021b;Li et al, 2021c;Wang et al, 2021). Recently, we and other groups demonstrate that incorporating dmECM into electrospun nanofibers might lead to conducive scaffolds or meniscus repair (Gao et al, 2017;Li et al, 2021b;Wang et al, 2021;Xia et al, 2021;Dorthe et al, 2022;Stocco et al, 2022). Our recent studies show that dmECM contains multiple meniscus-tissue specific bioactivities including collagen and GAGs that are essential for cell proliferation (Ding G et al, 2022).…”

In situ forming double-crosslinked hydrogels with highly dispersed short fibers for the treatment of irregular wounds

“…32–34 Fibrous membrane-enhanced hydrogels have been reported by layer-by-layer assembly. 35 For example, Stocco et al 36 developed a reinforced hydrogel by introducing multilayers of aligned electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL)/carbon nanotube nanofibrous membranes into a collagen-based hydrogel, which dramatically strengthened the mechanical performance of the composite hydrogels. Nevertheless, because of the weak interaction between the fiber and matrix, these composite hydrogels may delaminate resulting in an unstable structure.…”