The effect of melt electrospun writing fiber orientation onto cellular organization and mechanical properties for application in Anterior Cruciate Ligament tissue engineering

Marcin Gwiazda; Sudheesh Kumar; Wojciech Świeszkowski; Saso Ivanovski; Cedryck Vaquette

doi:10.1016/j.jmbbm.2020.103631

The effect of melt electrospun writing fiber orientation onto cellular organization and mechanical properties for application in Anterior Cruciate Ligament tissue engineering

J Mech Behav Biomed Mater. 2020 Apr:104:103631. doi: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2020.103631. Epub 2020 Jan 21.

Authors

Marcin Gwiazda¹, Sudheesh Kumar², Wojciech Świeszkowski³, Saso Ivanovski⁴, Cedryck Vaquette⁵

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland; Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.
² Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.
³ Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland.
⁴ The University of Queensland, School of Dentistry, Herston, Queensland, Australia.
⁵ The University of Queensland, School of Dentistry, Herston, Queensland, Australia. Electronic address: c.vaquette@uq.edu.au.

PMID: 32174392
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2020.103631

Abstract

The effect of melt electrospun writing fiber arrangement on cellular behavior has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Cellular orientation is particularly important in the context of ligament tissue engineering for orthopedic applications whereby a high degree of cell alignment is present in the native tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate the response of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) to three different patterned porous polycaprolactone scaffolds (aligned, crimped and random) fabricated by melt electrospinning writing, resulting in 20 μm diameter electrospun fibers. Cell orientation was investigated over 4 weeks in vitro and it was demonstrated that the aligned pattern was capable of orientating the hMSCs towards the main direction of the fibers and this feature was maintained over the entire culture period whereas the orientation was rapidly lost in the crimped pattern. In order to fabricate a functional scaffold for ligament tissue engineering, the scaffolds were rolled in three bundles, subsequently braided and combined with a bone compartment (consisting of a melt electrospun scaffold seeded with osteogenically induced hMSCs) for the development of a Bone-Ligament-Bone (BLB) construct. The mechanical properties of non-cellularized and cellularized BLB constructs were assessed under both quasi-static and cyclic conditions. This revealed that the in vitro maturation significantly softened the BLB constructs and that the mechanical properties were several fold lower than those of native tissue. The cyclic testing demonstrated that the presence of cell sheets resulted in increased resilience and elasticity, even though the global mechanical properties were decreased for the in vitro matured constructs (regardless of the pattern). In conclusion, we demonstrated that melt electrospinning writing fiber organization can induce spontaneous cell alignment and that large cellularized BLB constructs with complex geometry can achieve mechanical resilience under cyclic stretching.

Keywords: Anterior cruciate ligament; Braiding; Cell sheet; Fiber guiding; Melt electrospinning writing; Tissue engineering.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anterior Cruciate Ligament
Bone and Bones
Humans
Polyesters
Tissue Engineering*
Tissue Scaffolds*
Writing

Substances

Polyesters