Premium
Electrospun fibroin/polyurethane hybrid meshes: Manufacturing, characterization, and potentialities as substrates for haemodialysis arteriovenous grafts
Author(s) -
Uden Sebastião,
Catto Valentina,
Perotto Giovanni,
Athanassiou Athanassia,
Redaelli Alberto C. L.,
Greco Francesco G.,
Riboldi Stefania A.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of biomedical materials research part b: applied biomaterials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1552-4981
pISSN - 1552-4973
DOI - 10.1002/jbm.b.34177
Subject(s) - fibroin , materials science , polyurethane , electrospinning , biomedical engineering , composite material , silk , polymer , medicine
Several attempts made so far to combine silk fibroin and polyurethane, in order to prepare scaffolds encompassing the bioactivity of the former with the elasticity of the latter, suffer from critical drawbacks concerning industrial and clinical applicability (e.g., separation of phases upon processing, use of solvents unaddressed by the European Pharmacopoeia, and use of degradable polyurethanes). Overcoming these limitations, in this study, we report the successful blending of regenerated silk fibroin with a medical‐grade, non‐degradable polyurethane using formic acid and dichloromethane, and the manufacturing of hybrid, semi‐degradable electrospun tubular meshes with different ratios of the two materials. Physicochemical analyses demonstrated the maintenance of the characteristic features of fibroin and polyurethane upon solubilization, blending, electrospinning, and postprocessing with ethanol or methanol. Envisioning their possible application as semidegradable substrates for haemodialysis arteriovenous grafts, tubular meshes were further characterized, showing submicrometric fibrous morphologies, tunable mechanical properties, permeability before and after puncture in the same order of magnitude as commercial grafts currently used in the clinics. Results demonstrate the potential of this material for the development of hybrid, new‐generation vascular grafts with disruptive potential in the field of in situ tissue engineering. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater 107B: 807–817, 2019.