FUNCTIONAL POLYMERIC NANOSTRUCTURES FOR CARDIAC TISSUE ENGINEERING

Abstract

Cardiac tissue engineering promises to revolutionize the treatment of patients with end-stage heart failure and provide new solutions to the serious problems of heart donor shortage. In this project, electrospun poly(caprolactone)/gelatin (PG) nanofibers mimicking myocardial extracelluar matrix was fabricated to induce cardiogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells in vitro. Animal study showed that after four weeks of transplantation, the nanofibrous cardiac patch was found to restrict the expansion of the LV wall, reduced the scar size, improved cardiac function and promote angiogenesis in rat myocardial infarction model. Inspired by low-resistance pathways for electrical signal propagation in the native myocardium, electrically conductive nanofibrous scaffolds were electrospun by incorporating different concentrations of polypyrrole to PG, to provide electrophysiological cues to cardiomyocytes. The conductive nanofibers promoted cell attachment, proliferation, interaction and expression of cardiac-specific proteins, signifying the potential of using polypyrrole containing nanofibers for the regeneration of infarct myocardium.