Electrospinning for Regenerative Medicine

Electrospinning techniques enable the production of continuous fibers with dimensions on the scale of nanometers from a wide range of natural and synthetic polymers [135]. The number of recent studies regarding electrospun polysaccharides and their derivatives, which are potentially useful for regenerative medicine, is dramatically increasing. 

As a major component of the natural extracellular matrix, HA has also attracted considerable attention in electrospinning. However, it is very difficult to electrospin an aqueous HA solution because its unusual high viscosity and surface tension both hinder the electrospinning process. In addition, the 

HA-based nanofibrous membranes have been extremely attractive as bio-mimetic tissue engineering scaffolds and wound healing materials. In order to mimic the architecture of the natural ECM using electrospinning, a thiolated-HA derivative was synthesized and electrospun to form nanofibrous matrices [137]. 

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Reprinted from D. I. Braghirolli, D. Steffens and P. Pranke, Electrospinning for regenerative medicine a review of the main topics, Drug Discovery Today, 19, 743-753, Copyright 2014 with permission from... 

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