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Published on: September 12, 2014
Electrospun collagen-poly(L-lactic acid-co-ε-caprolactone) membranes for cartilage tissue engineering
1Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 1678 Dong Fang Road, Shanghai 200127, China.
Aim:
To study the feasibility of electrospun collagen-poly(L-lactic acid-co-ε-caprolactone) (collagen-PLCL) membranes for cartilage tissue engineering.
Materials & Methods:
Characteristics and mechanical properties of collagen-PLCL membranes were analyzed. The cell affinity of collagen-PLCL membranes with chondrocytes was also assessed. Then, the cell-scaffold constructs were engineered with collagen-PLCL membranes seeded chondrocytes by a sandwich model. After culture for 1 week in vitro, the constructs were implanted subcutaneously into nude mice for 4, 8 and 12 weeks, followed by evaluation of the quality of neocartilage.
Results:
Collagen-PLCL membranes exhibited excellent balanced properties without cytotoxicity. With the extension of implantation time in vivo, the constructs revealed more cartilage-like tissue especially at 8 and 12 weeks. The Young's modulus of the constructs also significantly increased and neared that of native cartilage at 12 weeks postimplantation.
Conclusion:
We suggest that collagen-PLCL membranes facilitate the formation of cartilage and thus may represent a promising scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering.
