Tissue Eng Regen Med.  2016 Apr;13(2):140-148. 10.1007/s13770-016-9048-7.

Microfluidic Spinning of the Fibrous Alginate Scaffolds for Modulation of the Degradation Profile

• Mun CH
• Hwang JY
• Lee SH

• KMID: 2360853
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1007/s13770-016-9048-7

Abstract

In tissue engineering, alginate has been an attractive material due to its biocompatibility and ability to form hydrogels, unless its uncontrollable degradation could be an undesirable feature. Here, we developed a simple and easy method to tune the degradation profile of the fibrous alginate scaffolds by the microfluidic wet spinning techniques, according with the use of isopropyl alcohol for dense packing of alginate chains in the microfiber production and the increase of crosslinking with Ca²âº ion. The degradation profiling was analyzed by mass losses, swelling ratios, and also observation of the morphologic changes. The results demonstrated that high packing density might be provided by self-aggregation of polymer chains through high dipole interactions between sheath and core fluids and that the increase of crosslinking rates could make degradation of alginate scaffold controllable. We suggest that the tunable degradation of the alginate fibrous scaffolds may expand its utilities for biomedical applications such as drug delivery, in vitro cell culture, wound healing, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Keyword

Alginate; Degradation; Isopropyl alcohol; Cross-linking; Microfluidic spinning

MeSH Terms

2-Propanol
Cell Culture Techniques
Hydrogel
Hydrogels
In Vitro Techniques
Methods
Microfluidics*
Polymers
Regenerative Medicine
Tissue Engineering
Wound Healing
2-Propanol
Hydrogel
Hydrogels
Polymers