Assembly of aligned polyvinyl alcohol–styrylpyridinium pendent group nanofibres for vascular tissue engineering applicationsg

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of assembling small diameter tubes with helically arranged fibres tomimic the helical structure of native blood vessels for possible future vascular tissue engineering applications. Photocrosslinkable polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with styrylpyridinium pendent groups (SbQ) was usedto produce nanofibres by the electrospinning process. A novel collector was designed to produce helically aligned fabric networks. Two main parameters of the electrospinning process, voltage and feed rate, were studied by investigating their effects on the resultant morphology of the fibres. Operating parameters of 10kV and 0.2 ml/h were found to be suitable for production of PVA-SbQ nanofibres, with a 10cm distance to the collector device. At these settings, a high degree of alignment of fibres both along and between the collector copper wires was observed using a scanning electron microscope. A preliminary cell culture study demonstrated viable attachment of endothelial cells on PVA-SbQ fibres which highlighted the potential of PVA-SbQ fibrous vessels produced according to this approach to act as a substrate or basement membrane for use in vascular tissue engineering scaffold development.