Background: Sufficient blood supply through neo-vasculature is a major challenge in cell therapy and tissue engineering in order to support the growth, function, and viability of implanted cells. However, depending on the implant size and cell types, the natural process of angiogenesis may not provide enough blood supply for long term survival of the implants, requiring supplementary strategy to prevent local ischemia. Many researchers have reported the methodologies to form pre-vasculatures that mimic in vivo microvessels for implantation to promote angiogenesis. These approaches successfully showed significant enhancement in long-term survival and regenerative functions of implanted cells, yet there remains room for improvement.
Methods: This paper suggests a proof-of-concept strategy to utilize novel scaffolds of dimpled/hollow electrospun fibers that enable the formation of highly mature pre-vasculatures with adequate dimensions and fast degrading in the tissue.
Result: Higher surface roughness improved the maturity of endothelial cells mediated by increased cell-scaffold affinity. The degradation of scaffold material for functional restoration of the neo-vasculatures was also expedited by employing the hollow scaffold design based on co-axial electrospinning techniques.
Conclusion: This unique scaffold-based pre-vasculature can hold implanted cells and tissue constructs for a prolonged time while minimizing the cellular loss, manifesting as a gold standard design for transplantable scaffolds.
Keywords: Electrospinning; Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs); Vascular tissue engineering.