TY - JOUR

T1 - In vivo analysis of vascularization and biocompatibility of electrospun polycaprolactone fibre mats in the rat femur chamber

AU - Gniesmer, Sarah

AU - Brehm, Ralph

AU - Hoffmann, Andrea

AU - de Cassan, Dominik

AU - Menzel, Henning

AU - Hoheisel, Anna Lena

AU - Glasmacher, Birgit

AU - Willbold, Elmar

AU - Reifenrath, Janin

AU - Wellmann, Mathias

AU - Ludwig, Nils

AU - Tavassol, Frank

AU - Zimmerer, Ruediger

AU - Gellrich, Nils Claudius

AU - Kampmann, Andreas

N1 - Funding Information: This research project has been supported by the DFG FOR 2180 “Gradierte Implantate für Sehnen‐Knochen‐Verbindungen” (KA 4236/1‐1). We acknowledge the excellent technical assistance of Stefanie Rausch.

PY - 2019/7/15

Y1 - 2019/7/15

N2 - In orthopaedic medicine, connective tissues are often affected by traumatic or degenerative injuries, and surgical intervention is required. Rotator cuff tears are a common cause of shoulder pain and disability among adults. The development of graft materials for bridging the gap between tendon and bone after chronic rotator cuff tears is essentially required. The limiting factor for the clinical success of a tissue engineering construct is a fast and complete vascularization of the construct. Otherwise, immigrating cells are not able to survive for a longer period of time, resulting in the failure of the graft material. The femur chamber allows the observation of microhaemodynamic parameters inside implants located in close vicinity to the femur in repeated measurements in vivo. We compared a porous polymer patch (a commercially available porous polyurethane-based scaffold from Biomerix™) with electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fibre mats and chitosan (CS)-graft-PCL modified electrospun PCL (CS-g-PCL) fibre mats in vivo. By means of intravital fluorescence microscopy, microhaemodynamic parameters were analysed repetitively over 20 days at intervals of 3 to 4 days. CS-g-PCL modified fibre mats showed a significantly increased vascularization at Day 10 compared with Day 6 and at Day 14 compared with the porous polymer patch and the unmodified PCL fibre mats at the same day. These results could be verified by histology. In conclusion, a clear improvement in terms of vascularization and biocompatibility is achieved by graft-copolymer modification compared with the unmodified material.

AB - In orthopaedic medicine, connective tissues are often affected by traumatic or degenerative injuries, and surgical intervention is required. Rotator cuff tears are a common cause of shoulder pain and disability among adults. The development of graft materials for bridging the gap between tendon and bone after chronic rotator cuff tears is essentially required. The limiting factor for the clinical success of a tissue engineering construct is a fast and complete vascularization of the construct. Otherwise, immigrating cells are not able to survive for a longer period of time, resulting in the failure of the graft material. The femur chamber allows the observation of microhaemodynamic parameters inside implants located in close vicinity to the femur in repeated measurements in vivo. We compared a porous polymer patch (a commercially available porous polyurethane-based scaffold from Biomerix™) with electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fibre mats and chitosan (CS)-graft-PCL modified electrospun PCL (CS-g-PCL) fibre mats in vivo. By means of intravital fluorescence microscopy, microhaemodynamic parameters were analysed repetitively over 20 days at intervals of 3 to 4 days. CS-g-PCL modified fibre mats showed a significantly increased vascularization at Day 10 compared with Day 6 and at Day 14 compared with the porous polymer patch and the unmodified PCL fibre mats at the same day. These results could be verified by histology. In conclusion, a clear improvement in terms of vascularization and biocompatibility is achieved by graft-copolymer modification compared with the unmodified material.

KW - angiogenesis

KW - biocompatibility

KW - electrospinning

KW - intravital microscopy

KW - microhaemodynamics

KW - PCL fibre mats

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066481026&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/term.2868

DO - 10.1002/term.2868

M3 - Article

C2 - 31025510

AN - SCOPUS:85066481026

VL - 13

SP - 1190

EP - 1202

JO - Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

JF - Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

SN - 1932-6254

IS - 7

ER -