Three-Dimensional Meltblowing as a High-Speed Fabrication Process for Tendon Tissue Engineered Scaffolds.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Rotator cuff tears continue to be a critical challenge for successful repair due to the formation of fibrotic scar tissue during healing. Tendon tissue engineering seeks to improve these outcomes using nonwoven fabrication methods to produce biomimetic scaffolds. Meltblowing has several advantages over other nonwoven approaches including non-toxic fabrication processes and being high-throughput and economical, while accurately producing fiber diameters comparable to native tendon microstructure. Recently 3D meltblowing (3DMB) introduced high degrees of tunability to the core process, allowing for production of highly aligned fiber mats at anatomically relevant dimensions. Here, we evaluated 3DMB scaffolds fabricated using poly-L-lactic acid (PLA) and poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) by characterizing scaffold properties before and after culture with human adipose stem cells (hASCs). Mechanical and fiber characterization of 3DMB scaffolds closely resembled tendon microarchitecture by exhibiting high fiber alignment and mechanical anisotropy. hASC-seeded 3DMB scaffolds after 28 days of culture proliferated and deposited aligned tendon-like extracellular matrix. Furthermore, cell culture enhanced the Young's modulus of PLA 3DMB scaffolds and improved yield stress, yield stretch, and stiffness of both 3DMB scaffolds. The proteome of cultured 3DMB scaffolds increased expression of tendon-r

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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