A novel seamless elastic scaffold for vascular tissue engineering.
Tissue-engineered vascular grafts have been investigated as a substitute for prosthetic vascular grafts. The current scaffolds have several limitations due to weak mechanical properties in withstanding the pressure of blood vessel. A gel-spinning molding device including three-separate drivers that make a cylindrical shaft turn on its axis, orbit, and concurrently move up and down was developed for preparing seamless fibrous tubular scaffolds for vascular grafts. A seamless double-layered tubular scaffold, which was composed of an outer fibrous network and inner porous layer, was fabricated by using the device for the spinning of poly(L-lactide-co-caprolactone) (PLCL, 50:50) solution as a gel state on a rotating cylindrical shaft that had been dip-coated with the mixture of PLCL solution and NaCl particles. A scaffold that had an inner layer fabricated with 30% salts, below 20 mum in salt size, and more than 100 microm in thickness, was found to be optimal from a blood leakage test. The burst pressures of the scaffolds were more than 900 mmHg. The scaffolds exhibited 550-670% elongation-at-break. The measured circumferential and longitudinal tensile strengths of the scaffolds were 3.62 +/- 0.68 and 2.64 +/- 0.41 MPa, respectively. The suture retention strength of the scaffold was measured to be 7.68 +/- 0.75 N. These mechanically strong and elastic properties of the newly developed scaffolds provide an important basis for blood vessel tissue engineering.
Kim
Sang-Heon
SH
Biomaterial Research Center, Division of Life Sciences, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, 39-1 Hawolgok-dong, Seongbook-Ku, Seoul 136-791, South Korea.
Chung
Eunna
E
Kim
Sang-Hoon
SH
Jung
Youngmee
Y
Kim
Young Ha
YH
Kim
Soo Hyun
SH
D004548:Elasticity; D004867:Equipment Design; D005782:Gels / Q000737:chemistry*; D008422:Materials Testing; D011091:Polyesters / Q000737:chemistry*; D016062:Porosity; D012212:Rheology; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000295:instrumentation*; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds / Q000737:chemistry*
D005782:Gels; D011091:Polyesters; C062968:lactide-caprolactone copolymer