Highly porous, fluffy structures for stem cell delivery

Abstract

Sutures have long been used to induce wound closing in various surgical operations in almost all human tissues. Sutures are required to have functions that not only induce wound closing, but also control cell attachment, growth, proliferation and differentiation (1). Recently, beyond its common applications to surgery, fibrous structures have received increasing attention in tissue engineering as cell delivery vehicles and biodegradable scaffolds. It has been reported that cells attached and proliferated well around fibers even when the diameter of the fiber was smaller than that of the cell. However, it should be noted that scaffolds for tissue engineering must have a highly porous three dimensional (3D) structure which allows mass-transport for cell nutrition, channels for cell migration, and surfaces for cell attachment. In this study, we prepared fluffy poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) sutures by untwisting parts of multi-filaments to create high porosity for cell infiltration and proliferation. Human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) were isolated from adipose tissue and seeded into the fluffy sutures. The cell attachment and proliferation into fluffy PLGA sutures were investigated