Cartilage regeneration electrospinning

Thorvaldsson, A., Stenhamre, H., Gatenholm, P., and Walkenstrom, P. (2008) Electrospinning of highly porous scaffolds for cartilage regeneration. Biomacromolecules, 9 (3), 1044-1049. 

Electrospun fibers have also been researched for cartilage regeneration procedures. Thorvaldsson et al. (2(X)8) used a combination of micro- and nanofibers to create novel fiber structures. This enhanced the pore structure characteristics of the fabricated scaffold. The synthesized scaffold enhanced the human chondrocyte infiltration. Nanocomposites consisting of multiwalled carbon nanombes (MWCNTs) and PLA were fabricated using electrospinning. The nanocomposite material displayed enhanced mechanical properties and improved the chondrogenesis of MSCs (Holmes et al., 2013). 

Overall, electrospinning finds a great utility in the fabrication of in vitro cell culture systems and in vivo tissue-engineering scaffolds. However, there are still limitations and drawbacks that need to be overcome to further enhance therapeutic applications of electrospun scaffolds in cartilage regeneration. 

The potential of P3HB films and scaffolds as matrices for cartilage regeneration have been extensively studied in vitro (see Sects. 3.2 and 5.2). Thus for example, nanofibrous polymer mats have been fabricated by electrospinning of P3HB-5%3HV solution and tested as potential scaffolds for chondrocyte attachment [133]. However, animal studies have not yet been reported. 

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