Electrospinning of nanofibres for construction of vital organ replacements

This paper described the production of a novel biosynthetic material using the manufacturing technique of electro spinning for the construction of scaffold for organ replacement. This electrostatic technique uses an electric field to control the deposition of polymer fibres onto a specific substrate to fabricate fibrous polymer constructs composed of fibre diameters ranging from several microns down to 100 nm or less. Two areas of research, in particular, heart valve leaflets and blood vessel will be discussed. Here, a sandwich structure nanofibre mesh was used to construct materials for leaflets of heart valve and blood vessel. In the case of heart valve leaflet, the randomly oriented polyurethane nanofibres were prepared as the first layer, followed by gelatin-chitosan complex layer. Complex nanofibres were initially used to spin on the PU layer with cross orientation to mimic the fibrosa layer. A gelatin and chitosan complex was then spun onto the other side of PU nanofibre mesh to mimic the ventricularis layer. This particular sandwich structure using the PU layer was designed to simulate the mechanical properties of natural tissue. In addition, this design was aimed to provide good biocompatibility and improved cellular environment to assist in adhesion and proliferation. Smooth muscle cells adhered and flattened out onto the surface of the gelatin-chitosan complex as early as 1 day post seeding. There is great potential for this biosynthetic biocompatible nanofibrous material to be developed for various clinical applications.