Electrospun fine-textured scaffolds for heart tissue constructs.

The structural and functional effects of fine-textured matrices with sub-micron features on the growth of cardiac myocytes were examined. Electrospinning was used to fabricate biodegradable non-woven poly(lactide)- and poly(glycolide)-based (PLGA) scaffolds for cardiac tissue engineering applications. Post-processing was applied to achieve macro-scale fiber orientation (anisotropy).

Prevention of postsurgery-induced abdominal adhesions by electrospun bioabsorbable nanofibrous poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-based membranes.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of nonwoven bioabsorbable nanofibrous membranes of poly(lactideco-glycolide) for prevention of postsurgery-induced abdominal adhesions.

Summary Background Data: Recent reports indicated that current materials used for adhesion prevention have only limited success. Studies on other bioabsorbable materials using a new fabrication technique demonstrated the promising potential of generating an improved and inexpensive product that is suitable for a variety of surgical applications.

Control of degradation rate and hydrophilicity in electrospun non-woven poly(D,L-lactide) nanofiber scaffolds for biomedical applications.

Typical properties of poly(D,L-lactide) (PLA)-based scaffolds (films and foams), such as long degradation time, mechanical stiffness and hydrophobicity, are sometimes not suitable for biomedical applications. These properties can be substantially altered by electrospinning of PLA blends with miscible poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) random copolymers, poly(lactide-b-ethylene glycol-b-lactide) (PLA-b-PEG-b-PLA) triblock copolymers, and a lactide (used as a hydrolytic catalyst). Electrospun scaffolds based on the multi-component PLA blends, comprised of randomly interconnected webs of sub-micron sized fibers, have a bulk density of 0.

Structure and morphology changes during in vitro degradation of electrospun poly(glycolide-co-lactide) nanofiber membrane.

Electrospun poly(glycolide-co-lactide) (PLA10GA90, LA/GA ratio 10/90) biodegradable nanofiber membranes possessed very high surface area to volume ratios and were completely noncrystalline with a relatively lowered glass transition temperature. These characteristics led to very different structure, morphology, and property changes during in vitro degradation, which were examined systematically. A shrinkage study showed that the electrospun crystallizable but amorphous PLA10GA90 membranes exhibited a very small shrinkage percentage when compared with the electrospun membranes of noncrystallizable poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLA75GA25, LA/GA 75/25) and poly(d,l-lactide).