Interwoven Aligned Conductive Nanofiber Yarn/Hydrogel Composite Scaffolds for Engineered 3D Cardiac Anisotropy

Abstract

Mimicking the anisotropic cardiac structure and guiding 3D cellular orientation play a critical role in designing scaffolds for cardiac tissue regeneration. Significant advances have been achieved to control cellular alignment and elongation, but it remains an ongoing challenge for engineering 3D cardiac anisotropy using these approaches. Here, we present a 3D hybrid scaffold based on aligned conductive nanofiber yarns network (NFYs-NET, composition: polycaprolactone, silk fibroin, and carbon nanotubes) within a hydrogel shell for mimicking the native cardiac tissue structure, and further demonstrate their great potential for engineering 3D cardiac anisotropy for cardiac tissue engineering. The NFYs-NET structures are shown to control cellular orientation and enhance cardiomyocytes (CMs) maturation. 3D hybrid scaffolds were then fabricated by encapsulating NFYs-NET layers within hydrogel shell, and these 3D scaffolds performed the ability to promote aligned and elongated CMs maturation on each layer and individually control cellular orientation on different layers in a 3D environment. Furthermore, endothelialized myocardium was constructed by using this hybrid strategy via the coculture of CMs on NFYs-NET layer and endothelial cells within hydrogel shell. Therefore, these 3D hybrid scaffolds, containing NFYs-NET layer inducing cellular orientation, maturation, and anisotropy and hydrogel shell providing a suitable 3D environment for endothelialization, has great potential in engineering 3D cardiac anisotropy.

Adhesive Hemostatic Conducting Injectable Composite Hydrogels with Sustained Drug Release and Photothermal Antibacterial Activity to Promote Full‐Thickness Skin Regeneration During Wound Healing

“…All these activities rely on the delivery of signals that caused the proliferation of cell lines at the edges of wound, which then formed a new matrix in the gap between wounds . Our previous researches have also proved the promoting effect of biomaterials with conductivity properties in wound healing process . Graphene is a promising candidate material for its excellent electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, high surface area, and mechanical strength .…”

Electrically conductive materials for in vitro cardiac microtissue engineering

“…The cardiomyocytes alignment and elongation was not limited to monolayer but expanded to 3D multilayer anisotropy. Furthermore, encapsulation of cardiomyocytes‐laden NFYs‐NET with endothelial cells‐laden GelMA hydrogel resulted in formation of the endothelialized myocardium on an in vitro 3D NFYs‐NET/GelMA support which resembles the native cardiac tissue and ensures its practical application (Wu et al, ).…”

Self‐Folded Hydrogel Tubes for Implantable Muscular Tissue Scaffolds

“…Recently, a 3D hybrid scaffolds, comprised from a conductive nanofiber network with GelMA hydrogel shell, was used to encapsulate cardiac cells to engineer anisotropic and endothelialized cardiac constructs. [37] We here presented an alternative way of encapsulating contractile cardiomyocytes, which did not require potentially toxic conductive elements (Figure 4g,h). We monitored their contractile behavior over 7 d inside the tubes (Video S3, Supporting Information).…”