Polyhydroxyalkanoates as biomaterial for electrospun scaffolds

Abstract

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are natural polyesters produced by microorganisms under carbon source excess and limiting nutrient conditions. However, these biopolymers possess low mechanical and thermal properties, decreasing their potential applications in the medical field. Electrospinning is a technique that forms fibers from different polymers. PHA electrospun fibers improve the mechanical properties and decrease the crystallinity of PHA, including poly-3-hydroxybutyrate and its copolymers, which is attributed to the metastable structure (β-form) formation. Therefore, the mechanical properties of fibers are intrinsically related to their plane orientation. Aligned fibers present better mechanical properties than randomly oriented fibers. However, randomly oriented fibers promote cell-fiber interaction and cell infiltration. Fibers produced with PHA blended with other polymers have shown improved mechanical and biological properties. Gelatin, zein and cellulose acetate are the main natural polymers that have been blended with PHA for electrospun scaffolds. For scaffold production by coaxial electrospinning, gelatin has been used as a shell and PHA as the core. PHA have been combined with different synthetic polymers and plasticizers resulting in an increase in the PHA miscibility. Therefore, the use of electrospinning in the development of PHA-based scaffolds seems to be an attractive method to change the intrinsic polymer features, increasing and enhancing PHA applications in tissue engineering.

Keywords: Bacterial polyhydroxyalkanoates; Electrospinning; Fibers; Scaffolds; Tissue engineering.