High Strength and High Toughness Electrospun Multifibrillar Yarns with Highly Aligned Hierarchy Intended as Anisotropic Extracellular Matrix

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Liao, Xiaojian ; Jérôme, Valérie ; Agarwal, Seema ; Freitag, Ruth ; Greiner, Andreas:
High Strength and High Toughness Electrospun Multifibrillar Yarns with Highly Aligned Hierarchy Intended as Anisotropic Extracellular Matrix.
In: Macromolecular Bioscience. Bd. 22 (2022) Heft 12 . - 2200291.
ISSN 1616-5195
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/mabi.202200291

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Abstract

Abstract Electrospun nanofibers can be effectively used as a surrogate for extracellular matrices (ECMs). However, in the context of cellular mechanobiology, their mechanical performances could be enhanced by using nanofibrous materials with a high level of structural organization. Herein, we developed multifibrillar yarns with superior mechanical performance based on biocompatible polyacrylonitrile as surrogate ECM. Nearly-perfect aligned nanofibers along with the axis of the multifibrillar yarn were prepared. These highly aligned yarns exhibit high strength, high toughness, good stress relaxation behavior, and are robust enough for technical or medical applications. Further, we analyzed the influence of the highly aligned-hierarchical topological structure of the material on cell proliferation and cell orientation using cells derived from epithelial and connective tissues. Compared to non-oriented electrospun multifibrillar yarns and flat films, the well-ordered topology in the electrospun polyacrylonitrile multifibrillar yarns triggers an improved proliferation of fibroblasts and epithelial cells. The fibroblast acquired an elongated morphology analogous to their behavior in the natural ECM. Hence, this heterogeneous multifibrillar material could be used to restore or reproduce the ECM for tissue engineering applications, notably in the skeletal muscle and tendon. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved