Recent Progress and Potential Biomedical Applications of Electrospun Nanofibers in Regeneration of Tissues and Organs

Abstract

Electrospun techniques are promising and flexible technologies to fabricate ultrafine fiber/nanofiber materials from diverse materials with unique characteristics under optimum conditions. These fabricated fibers/nanofibers via electrospinning can be easily assembled into several shapes of three-dimensional (3D) structures and can be combined with other nanomaterials. Therefore, electrospun nanofibers, with their structural and functional advantages, have gained considerable attention from scientific communities as suitable candidates in biomedical fields, such as the regeneration of tissues and organs, where they can mimic the network structure of collagen fiber in its natural extracellular matrix(es). Due to these special features, electrospinning has been revolutionized as a successful technique to fabricate such nanomaterials from polymer media. Therefore, this review reports on recent progress in electrospun nanofibers and their applications in various biomedical fields, such as bone cell proliferation, nerve regeneration, and vascular tissue, and skin tissue, engineering. The functionalization of the fabricated electrospun nanofibers with different materials furnishes them with promising properties to enhance their employment in various fields of biomedical applications. Finally, we highlight the challenges and outlooks to improve and enhance the application of electrospun nanofibers in these applications.