Extracellular matrix regenerated: tissue engineering via electrospun biomimetic nanofibers

Abstract

While electrospinning had seen intermittent use in the textile industry from the early twentieth century, it took the explosion of the field of tissue engineering, and its pursuit of biomimetic extracellular matrix (ECM) structures, to create an electrospinning renaissance. Over the past decade, a growing number of researchers in the tissue engineering community have embraced electrospinning as a polymer processing technique that effectively and routinely produces non‐woven structures of nanoscale fibers (sizes of 80 nm to 1.5 µm). These nanofibers are of physiological significance as they closely resemble the structure and size scale of the native ECM (fiber diameters of 50 to 500 nm). Attempts to replicate the many roles of native ECM have led to the electrospinning of a wide array of polymers, both synthetic (poly(glycolic acid), poly(lactic acid), polydioxanone, polycaprolactone, etc.) and natural (collagen, fibrinogen, elastin, etc.) in origin, for a multitude of different tissue applications. With various compositions, fiber dimensions and fiber orientations, the biological, chemical and mechanical properties of the electrospun materials can be tailored. In this review we highlight the role of electrospinning in the engineering of different tissues and applications (skin/wound healing, cartilage, bone, vascular tissue, urological tissues, nerve, and ligament), and discuss its potential role in future work. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry

Design of Nano- and Microfiber Combined Scaffolds by Electrospinning of Collagen onto Starch-Based Fiber Meshes: A Man-Made Equivalent of Natural Extracellular Matrix

“…The average diameter of nanofibers was around 400 nm, which coincides well with the collagen fiber bundle diameter characteristic of the natural ECM. 34 Immunohistochemistry results confirmed the collagenous nature of nanofibers that were deposited on SPCL microfiber meshes.…”

Nanofibers Made of Globular Proteins

“…3 This method is relatively simple, allowing for the manipulation of many parameters, such as fiber diameter and morphology, and enabling the formation of nonwoven mats with a controlled density. For these reasons, electrospinning has gained significant interest during the past decade as an alternative methodology for the development of biodegradable polymers for possible biomedical applications such as scaffolds for tissue engineering [4][5][6][7] and as carriers for drugs and bioactive molecules, including enzymes or even bacteria. [8][9][10][11][12][13] Significant efforts have recently been made to mimic nature by fabricating fibers made solely from natural proteins, hoping that such nanofibers would be less prone to rejection by the host.…”

The Use of Natural Polymers in Tissue Engineering: A Focus on Electrospun Extracellular Matrix Analogues

“…With its ability to rapidly create structures composed of nanoscale fibers closely resembling the architecture of the native ECM, this process has experienced a renaissance in recent years and continues to find new niches in the field of tissue engineering. This relatively simple process has proven to be highly adaptable, with the capacity for use with a number of natural and synthetic polymers, cost effectiveness, easy scale-up for large volume production, and the ability to provide users control over a number of processing parameters which can be modified to elicit fine control over the end-product's physical features [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

“…Aside from its widespread presence natively in the body, collagen has several properties that make it an attractive biomaterial for tissue engineering applications: low antigenicity, low inflammatory and cytotoxic responses, high water affinity, good cell compatibility, availability of various methods of isolation from a variety of sources, and biodegradability [4,8,11].…”

“…As the jet travels through the air towards the collecting target the solvent gradually evaporates, resulting in the collection of nano to micron scale fibers on the target. The charge from the fibers dissipates into the surrounding environment, and a nonwoven fiber mat consisting of fibers 50 nm to 10 µm in diameter is formed [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]13,14]. The ability for electrospinning to create tissue specific scaffolds arises from the adaptability of the process and the system control offered by a number of tunable processing parameters: solution properties (viscosity, elasticity, conductivity, and surface tension), processing conditions (voltage, capillary diameter, distance from capillary orifice to grounded target), and environmental conditions (temperature, humidity and static electricity) [6,9,10,15].…”