Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) hollow fibre membranes for use as a tissue engineering scaffold

Mass transfer limitations of scaffolds are currently hindering the development of 3-dimensional, clin. viable, tissue engineered constructs. The authors have developed a poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) hollow fiber membrane scaffold that will provide support for cell culture, allow pseudovascularisation in vitro and provide channels for angiogenesis in vivo. The authors produced PDLLGA flat sheet membranes using 1, 4-dioxane and 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) as solvents and water as the nonsolvent, and hollow fiber membranes, using NMP and water, by dry/wet- and wet-spinning. The resulting fibers had an outer diam. of 700 micro m and an inner diam. of 250 micro m with 0.2-1.0 micro m pores on the culture surface. It was shown that varying the air gap and temp. when spinning changed the morphol. of the fibers. The introduction of a 50 mm air gap caused a dense skin of 5 micro m thick to form, compared to a skin of 0.5 micro m thick without an air gap. Spinning at 40 DegC produced fibers with a more open central section in the wall that contained more, larger macrovoids compared to fibers spun at 20 DegC. Culture of the immortalized osteogenic cell line 560pZIPv.neo (pZIP) was carried out on the PDLLGA flat sheets in static-culture and in a PDLLGA hollow fiber bioreactor under counter-current flow conditions. Attachment and proliferation was statistically similar to tissue culture polystyrene on the flat sheets and was also successful in the hollow fiber bioreactor. The PDLLGA hollow fibers are a promising scaffold to address the size limitations currently seen in tissue engineered constructs. [on SciFinder (R)]