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Microfabrication of a biomimetic arcade-like electrospun scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering applications

  • Tissue Engineering Constructs and Cell Substrates
  • Original Research
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Abstract

In recent years, the engineering of biomimetic cellular microenvironments has emerged as a top priority for regenerative medicine, being the in vitro recreation of the arcade-like cartilaginous tissue one of the most critical challenges due to the notorious absence of cost- and time-efficient microfabrication techniques capable of building 3D fibrous scaffolds with precise anisotropic properties. Taking this into account, we suggest a feasible and accurate methodology that uses a sequential adaptation of an electrospinning-electrospraying set up to construct a hierarchical system comprising both polycaprolactone (PCL) fibres and polyethylene glycol sacrificial microparticles. After porogen leaching, the bi-layered PCL scaffold was capable of presenting not only a depth-dependent fibre orientation similar to natural cartilage, but also mechanical features and porosity proficient to encourage an enhanced cell response. In fact, cell viability studies confirmed the biocompatibility of the scaffold and its ability to guarantee suitable cell adhesion, proliferation and migration throughout the 3D anisotropic fibrous network during 21 days of culture. Additionally, likewise the hierarchical relationship between chondrocytes and their extracellular matrix, the reported PCL scaffold was able to induce depth-dependent cell-material interactions responsible for promoting a spatial modulation of the morphology, alignment and density of the cells in vitro.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Portuguese funding of Program COMPETE-FEDER, Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização through the projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016574, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028424 and CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-022083. Also by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia I.P. (FCT, IP) through the projects PTDC/EME-SIS/28424/2017, PTDC/EMSTEC/3263/2014, IF/00917/2013/CP1162/CT0016 and UID/EMS/00481/2013. The authors thank to FCT for the PhD grants SFRH/BD/130287/2017 and SFRH/BD/133129/2017 and for the Investigator Program IF/00917/2013. The authors are also grateful for the generosity and valuable input of Gonçalo Ramalho, Susana Cristina, Nathalie Barroca and Nuno Almeida.

Authors contributions

AFG: conceptualisation, investigation, writing—original draft. AS: conceptualisation, investigation, writing—review and editing. ALP: validation. AC: writing—review and editing, supervision. PAAPM: writing—review and editing, supervision.

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  1. TEMA, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    André F. Girão, Ângela Semitela, Andreia Leal Pereira, António Completo & Paula A. A. P. Marques

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  1. André F. Girão
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Girão, A.F., Semitela, Â., Pereira, A.L. et al. Microfabrication of a biomimetic arcade-like electrospun scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering applications. J Mater Sci: Mater Med 31, 69 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10856-020-06407-4

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