Emulsion Electrospun Multicomponent Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Tissue loss or dysfunction caused by trauma or disease is a major medical problem that threatens human health and life. Tissue transplantation has been used to solve this problem but it has been limited by donor shortage, immunological rejection, and possible transmission of diseases. Therefore, new strategies are pursued to overcome the drawbacks of tissue transplantation and to promote new tissue formation in human bodies. Tissue engineering, which develops biological substitutes for regenerating human body tissues, holds great promise to solve the major problems in tissue loss or dysfunction. Electrospinning can produce nanofibrous scaffolds which resemble the extracellular matrix of body tissues. Emulsion electrospinning has been studied for fabricating nanofibrous delivery vehicles for drugs and biomolecules. High encapsulation efficiency and controlled release of drugs or biomolecules can be achieved through emulsion electrospun scaffolds. Furthermore, dual delivery of drugs and biomolecules is possible using emulsion electrospun bicomponent scaffolds. Multicomponent scaffolds can be produced by using concurrent or sequential electrospinning. The morphology and structure of multicomponent scaffolds are influenced by different parameters. Multicomponent and multifunctional nanofibrous scaffolds can be developed for the regeneration of complex human body tissues.