Electrospun PU-PEG and PU-PC hybrid scaffolds for vascular tissue engineering

Produced via electrospinning, polyurethane (PU) scaffolds have always attracted the interest of medical applications due of their unique properties such as good adhesion, biocompatibility and excellent mechanical strength. However, the poor hydrophilicity and hemocompatibility of PU presented a problem during PU’s application in the manufacturing of biomedical materials. We hypothesized that the incorporation of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) into electrospinning solution of PU could improve the cell affinity and hemocompatibility. This research focused on fabricating hybrid PU-PEG and PU-PC random/aligned scaffolds through electrospinning technique and comparing their properties as a potential biocompatible scaffold for vascular tissue engineering. PC was doped into a PU solution in order to prepare an electrospun scaffold through the electrospinning technology while crosslinked electrospun PUPEG hybrid scaffolds were fabricated by photoinduced polymerization. The contact angle dramatically decreased from 122.3±0.8° to 39.1±0.8° with doping of PC in electrospinning solution while it decreased from 122.3±0.8° to 41.6±0.8° with doping of PEG. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of PU scaffolds were altered significantly by the addition of PC. The hemolysis and cytocompatibility assays demonstrated that these composite scaffolds could potentially be used as a smalldiameter vascular graft.