Albumin fiber scaffolds for engineering functional cardiac tissues

Abstract

In recent years attempts to engineer contracting cardiac patches were focused on recapitulation of the myocardium extracellular microenvironment. We report here on our work, where for the first time, a three-dimensional cardiac patch was fabricated from albumin fibers. We hypothesized that since albumin fibers' mechanical properties resemble those of cardiac tissue extracellular matrix (ECM) and their biochemical character enables their use as protein carriers, they can support the assembly of cardiac tissues capable of generating strong contraction forces. Here, we have fabricated aligned and randomly oriented electrospun albumin fibers and investigated their structure, mechanical properties, and chemical nature. Our measurements showed that the scaffolds have improved elasticity as compared to synthetic electrospun PCL fibers, and that they are capable of adsorbing serum proteins, such as laminin leading to strong cell-matrix interactions. Moreover, due to the functional groups on their backbone, the fibers can be chemically modified with essential biomolecules. When seeded with rat neonatal cardiac cells the engineered scaffolds induced the assembly of aligned cardiac tissues with high aspect ratio cardiomyocytes and massive actinin striation. Compared to synthetic fibrous scaffolds, cardiac cells cultured within aligned or randomly oriented scaffolds formed functional tissues, exhibiting significantly improved function already on Day 3, including higher beating rate (P = 0.0002 and P < 0.0001, respectively), and higher contraction amplitude (P = 0.009 and P = 0.003, respectively). Collectively, our results suggest that albumin electrospun scaffolds can play a key role in contributing to the ex vivo formation of a contracting cardiac muscle tissue.

Poly(hydroxybutyrate‐co‐hydroxyvalerate) and bovine serum albumin blend prepared by electrospinning

“…Similar results are reported by Nseir et al . and Fleischer et al . At a glance, the fibrous PHBV+BSA blend film looked similar to the fibrous film made of PHBV.…”

Modular assembly of thick multifunctional cardiac patches

“…Electrospinning is a well-established method used in tissue engineering to fabricate fibrous scaffolds (9,10,(22)(23)(24). We have recently reported on the potential of albumin fiber scaffolds to promote the assembly of anisotropic and functional cardiac patches.…”

“…We have recently reported on the potential of albumin fiber scaffolds to promote the assembly of anisotropic and functional cardiac patches. However, their relatively low thickness (∼100 μm) may limit their clinical applicability (24). Here, we propose to overcome these challenges by a bottom-up design approach in which each layer of the engineered tissue has a distinct role.…”

Long‐Range Proton Conduction across Free‐Standing Serum Albumin Mats

“…BSA mats are biocompatible and can support cell proliferation,46 which makes this system ideal for the study of proton translocation between cells. Moreover, BSA mats are highly robust and can be placed in many organic solvents and acids without being dissolved.…”