title: A facile method to fabricate poly(L-lactide) nano-fibrous morphologies by phase inversion.
abstract: Scaffolds with a nano-fibrous morphology are favored for certain tissue engineering applications as this morphology mimics the tissue's natural extracellular matrix secreted by the cells, which consists of mainly collagen fibers with diameters ranging from 50 to 400 nm. Porous poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) scaffolds obtained by phase inversion methods generally have a solid-wall pore morphology. In contrast, this work presents a facile method to fabricate highly porous and highly interconnected nano-fibrous scaffold sheets by phase inversion using PLLA of very high molecular weight (5.7x10(5) g mol(-1)). The scaffold sheets consist of nano-fibers within the desired range of 50-500 nm. When applying phase separation micromolding as a fabrication method besides the porous nano-fibrous morphology, an additional topography can be introduced into these sheets. Culturing of C2C12 pre-myoblasts on these nano-fibrous sheets reveals very good cell adhesion, morphology and proliferation. Excellent alignment of the cells is induced by fabrication of 25 microm wide microchannels in these sheets. These results warrant further evaluation of these sheets as tissue engineering scaffolds.
authors.affiliation: Membrane Science and Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, MIRA Institute for BioMedical Technology and Technical Medicine, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bernke J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Papenburg
authors.forename: Lydia A M
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Bolhuis-Versteeg
authors.forename: Dirk W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Grijpma
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feijen
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wessling
authors.forename: Dimitrios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stamatialis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D008970:Molecular Weight; D049329:Nanostructures; D011091:Polyesters / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011091:Polyesters; C033616:poly(lactide)