Premium
Vascular tissue engineering of small‐diameter blood vessels: reviewing the electrospinning approach
Author(s) -
Ercolani Enrico,
Del Gaudio Costantino,
Bianco Alessandra
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.835
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1932-7005
pISSN - 1932-6254
DOI - 10.1002/term.1697
Subject(s) - electrospinning , context (archaeology) , biomedical engineering , tissue engineering , extracellular matrix , computer science , materials science , nanotechnology , biochemical engineering , engineering , polymer , chemistry , composite material , biology , paleontology , biochemistry
Vascular tissue engineering is a relevant research field aimed at elaborating and proposing innovative solutions to overcome the drawbacks related to the use of conventional blood vessel substitutes, especially referring to small‐diameter grafts. For this aim, electrospinning can be regarded as a valuable technique to produce novel scaffolds with several functional characteristics that can be usefully tailored for the application discussed here. The reproduction of the natural extracellular matrix obtained by processing bioresorbable polymers, either functionalized or not, is driving the biomedical research towards technical solutions that can lead to an actual therapeutic improvement. In this context, this paper reviews those studies focused on the selection of suitable biomaterials for vascular applications, their microstructure, the cell response to polymeric fibres and the strategies considered so far to modify and therefore enhance the performance of final electrospun scaffolds. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.