Fabrication and in vitro analysis of tubular scaffolds by melt-drawing for esophageal tissue engineering

摘要

A highly aligned microfibrous tubular scaffold was developed for esophageal tissue engineering, aiming to fabricate a biomechanically compatible esophageal scaffold. The tubular scaffold was fabricated by melt-drawing of poly(L-lactide-co-epsilon-caprolactone) (PLC). Different melt-drawing speeds were evaluated in order to obtain an optimal microfiber dimension for the scaffold. Preliminary tensile results show that these scaffolds have comparable tensile properties with the native esophagus. All the scaffolds were found to promote cell adhesion and proliferation based on the in vitro results. It suggests that the melt-drawn PLC tubular scaffold with an autologous cell-seeding could be a good candidate for the esophageal tissue engineering. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.