DESIGNING NANOFIBROUS SCAFFOLDS FOR TISSUE ENGINEERING - Advanced Biomaterials: Fundamentals, Processing, and Applications - page 471

knitted microfi brous PLGA scaffold. Porcine bone marrow stromal cells seeded
on these scaffolds demonstrated better cellular adhesion and proliferation
as compared to the control. Increased production of ECM and specifi cally
enhanced expression of collagen-I, decorin, and biglycan, was observed on nano-
microfi brous scaffolds compared to control of only PLGA-knitted fi bers. Thus,
novel nano - microfi brous scaffolds could be a potential scaffold for ligament and
tendon tissue engineering [96].
Therefore, electrospun nanofi brous constructs can be manipulated to form
appropriate scaffolds for ligament tissue engineering.
Although there have not been any studies on the use of electrospun nanofi -
bers for tendon repair, it is intuitive to believe that aligned nanofi brous scaffolds
can serve as potential scaffolds for tendon tissue engineering as well [293].
Table 13.3 provides a summary of the electrospun scaffolds applied in tissue
engineering.
13.6 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The fi eld of tissue engineering is less than three decades old and the progress
made has been impressive. With the advent of novel biomaterials and processing
technologies for biomaterials, scaffolding systems have improved signifi cantly in
the recent past. The fabrication technique plays a very important role in deter-
mining the kind of scaffold generated. Amongst the nanostructured scaffolds,
nanofi bers have been the choice for scaffold development. These continuous
fi bers with diameters in the nanometer scale have advantages of possessing high
porosity, and high surface area to volume ratio that enable the cells to perform
their functions, while providing for appropriate nutrient and waste transfer. More
importantly, they possess physical similarity to the native ECM components.
Hence, they are being explored by tissue engineers throughout the world for the
regeneration of a wide variety of tissues of the human body. Electrospinning has
emerged as a simple and versatile technique for the generation of ultrathin fi bers
that can potentially mimic the ECM components of tissue, that is, native environ-
ment of the cell. Nanofi bers have revolutionized the fi eld of tissue engineering by
providing ECM mimicking via a relatively easy fabrication method of electros-
pinning. Variants of electrospinning technique in terms of collector plate as well
as spinneret are now being explored. For instance, co-electrospinning involves the
synthesis of nanofi ber with coating of another fi ber on it and has been used for
the synthesis of core-shell type nanofi bers and incorporation of sensitive com-
pounds such as growth factors in the core.
This chapter provided a brief understanding of the scaffolds synthesized by
electrospinning technique and their role in musculo-skeletal tissue engineering.
There is description of the state of the art of each musculo-skeletal tissue in terms
of in vitro and in vivo studies. The process of development of a nanofi ber based
bio-mimetic scaffolds is still in its initial stages and has a long way to go before it
can be made available commercially for clinical use.