Journal
MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING C-MATERIALS FOR BIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS
Volume 98, Issue -, Pages 241-249Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.msec.2018.12.126
Keywords
Biomimetic; Vascular grafts; Mechanical properties; Biocompatibility; Tissue engineering
Categories
Funding
- NHLBI of the National Institutes of Health [U01HL134655]
- National Center for International Research of Micro-Nano Molding Technology of Henan Province [MMT2017-02]
- Key Laboratory for Micro Molding Technology of Henan Province [MMT2017-02]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2017BQ069]
- Kuo K. and Cindy F. Wang Professorship
- Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
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Mimicking the mechanical properties of native tissue is an important requirement for tissue engineering scaffolds. Blood vessels are subject to repetitive dilation and contraction and possess a special nonlinear mechanical property due to their triple-layered structure. Fabrication of vascular grafts consisting of bioresorbable materials with biomimetic mechanical properties is an urgent demand, as well as a critical challenge. Inspired by the configuration and function of collagen and elastin in native blood vessels, a new type of triple-layered vascular graft (TLVG) was developed in this study. The TLVGs were composed of braided silk as the inner layer, polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel as the middle layer, and electrospun thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) as the outer layer. The woven-structured silk fibers were able to mimic the properties of the loosely distributed collagen fibers, while the highly elastic PAM hydrogel and TPU nanofibers mimicked the elasticity of elastin in the blood vessel. With this specially designed microstructure and combination of rigid and elastic materials, the TLVGs successfully mimicked the nonlinear mechanical property of native blood vessels. Moreover, TLVGs possess sufficient suture retention strength for surgical implantation. The introduction of a PAM hydrogel layer effectively solved the leaking issue for conventional porous vascular grafts and greatly enhanced the burst pressure. In addition, all materials used have high biocompatibility to human endothelial cells, which indicates that the developed TLVGs have high potential to be used as readily available vascular grafts.
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