Topographic Guidance in Melt-Electrowritten Tubular Scaffolds Enhances Engineered Kidney Tubule Performance.

ABSTRACT: Introduction: To date, tubular tissue engineering relies on large, non-porous tubular scaffolds (Ø > 2 mm) for mechanical self-support, or smaller (Ø 150-500 μm) tubes within bulk hydrogels for studying renal transport phenomena. To advance the engineering of kidney tubules for future implantation, constructs should be both self-supportive and yet small-sized and highly porous. Here, we hypothesize that the fabrication of small-sized porous tubular scaffolds with a highly organized fibrous microstructure by means of melt-electrowriting (MEW) allows the development of self-supported kidney proximal tubules with enhanced properties. Materials and Methods: A custom-built melt-electrowriting (MEW) device was used to fabricate tubular fibrous scaffolds with small diameter sizes (Ø

SUBMITTER: van Genderen AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7848123 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature