The effect of electrospun fibre alignment on the behaviour of rat periodontal ligament cells

Abstract

It is envisioned that for the regeneration of highly organized structures, like tendon and ligaments, only aligned fibrous scaffolds can provide adequate topographic guidance to cells. In this study, a novel method to electrospin an aligned scaffold is presented. Electrospun fibres were deposited into a water bath and then the fibres were drawn to a rotating mandrel in a controlled manner. In this way, parallel and cross-aligned fibrous poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) scaffolds were fabricated, which were subsequently used to study their effect on the growth behaviour of rat periodontal ligament (PDL) cells. First, the scaffolds were characterized regarding mechanical properties, scaffold stability and degradation in vitro. Then, rat PDL cells were seeded and cultured on these scaffolds for up to 7 days. Randomly oriented PLGA and solvent cast plain PLGA films served as controls. Results showed that the alignment of fibres resulted in a higher tensile stress and Young's modulus. Aligned scaffolds maintained their structural stability better compared to the controls after incubation in phosphate-buffered saline for 6 weeks. Further, cells were observed to elongate along the fibre after 3 days of culture. Proliferation and migration of PDL cells was significantly more prevalent on the aligned fibres compared to the controls. It was concluded that aligned scaffolds seem to be able to promote the organized regeneration of periodontal tissue.

Electrospinning of Nanocomposite Fibrillar Tubular and Flat Scaffolds with Controlled Fiber Orientation

“…In fact, the tensile strength of our scaffolds is comparable to the tensile strength of poly(lactic acid)-hydroxyapatite composite with 35% hydroxyapatite crystal fibres fabricated by hot pressing [14]. Our results are also comparable with the mechanical properties of oriented electrospun scaffolds of poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) (with a tensile modulus of 40 MPa and a tensile strength of 6 MPa in the orientation direction [33]). …”

Modulating microfibrillar alignment and growth factor stimulation to regulate mesenchymal stem cell differentiation

“…We hypothesize that aligned fibers provide a substrate more conductive to MSC migration and hence aggregation. In agreement with this concept, aligned fibers have previously been shown to facilitate cell migration [52,53]. The fact that this clustering is exclusively observed in the presence of TGFβ3 is likely due to the known proliferative and chemotactic properties of this growth factor [54,55].…”

Proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of human periodontal ligament cells on akermanite and β-TCP bioceramics

“…Alveolar bone loss/defect resulting from infl ammation, trauma and surgical resection, (Pihlstrom et al, 2005;Shang et al, 2010), would usually fail to provide suffi cient support and retention for dentures or dental implants during prosthodontics treatment (Cawood et al, 1991). Reconstruction of alveolar bone is an important part of therapeutic procedures in periodontal tissues regeneration therapy and pre-prosthetic, pre-implantology surgery (Orciani et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2009).…”