Design and Fabrication of Tissue-Engineering Multiscale and Multichannel Nerve Conduits for Rabbits' Sciatic Nerve Regeneration

摘要

Numerous studies have focused on the construction of a multichannel structure; however, most of these fabricated conduits involved a hydrogel-based or synthetic polymer structure. The fabrication of multi-scale nerve conduits consisting of an inner natural polymer and outer synthetic polymer to mimic the structure of natural nerve conduits would be of great value. Toward this goal, we developed a versatile method for fabricating multiscale and multichannel rabbits' nerve conduits by utilizing a molding technique. Gelatin hydrogel was used as the inner material of the nerve conduit and polylactic acid (PLA) was electrospun onto the surface of the obtained multiscale gelatin hydrogel. Cell-based experiments demonstrated that PC-12 cells (rat pheochromocytoma cells) successfully attached to the surface of the multichannel and PLA fibers and maintained high viability after several days of culture. Histological examination of transected sciatic nerve in rabbits revealed that a significant improvement of nerve healing as well as nerve reconstruction. In vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that the fabrication process holds great potential for clinical applications.