Nanomaterials for Cardiac Tissue Engineering Application

In recent years, the emerging cardiac tissue engineering provides a new therapeutic method for heart diseases. And in the tissue engineering, the scaffold material which can mimic the structure of the extracellular matrix properly is a key factor. The rapid expansion of nano-scaffolds during the past ten years has led to new perspectives and advances in biomedical research as well as in clinical practice. Here we search articles published in recent years extensively on cardiac tissue engineering scaffold materials and nanotechnology. And we review the traditional scaffold materials and the advances of the nano-scaffolds in cardiac tissue engineering. A thorough understanding of the nano-scaffolds would enable us to better exploit technologies to research the ideal scaffold material, and promote the cardiac tissue engineering using in the clinical practice as soon as possible.

Enhancing osteogenic bioactivities of coaxial electrospinning nanoscaffolds through incorporating iron oxide nanoparticles and icaritin for bone regeneration

Bone tissue engineering provides a promising strategy for the treatment of bone defects.Nonetheless,the clinical utilization of biomaterial-based scaffolds is constrained by their inadequate mechanical strength and absence of osteo-inductive properties.Here,we proposed to endow nano-scaffold(NS)constructed by coaxial electrospinning technique with enhanced osteogenic bioactivities and mechanical properties by incorporating biocompatible magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles(IONPs)and icaritin(ICA).Four types of nano-scaffolds(NS,ICA@NS,NS-IONPs and ICA@NS-IONPs)were prepared.The incorporation of ICA and IONPs minimally impact their surface morphological and chemical properties.IONPs enhanced the mechanical properties of NS scaffolds,including hardness,tensile strength,and elastic modulus.In vitro assessments demonstrated that ICA@NS-IONPs exhibited enhanced osteogenic bioactivities towards mouse calvarial pre-osteoblast cell line MC3T3-E1 as evidenced by detecting the alkaline phosphatase(ALP)activity level,expressions of osteogenesis-related genes and proteins as well as mineralized nodule formation.Mechanistic investigations revealed that MEK/ERK(MAP kinase-ERK kinase(MEK)/extracellularsignal-regulated kinase(ERK))signaling pathway could offer a plausible explanation for the osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells induced by ICA@NS-IONPs.Furthermore,the implantation of nano-scaffolds in rat skull defects exhibited a substantial improvement in in vivo bone regeneration.Therefore,IONPs and ICA incorporated coaxial electrospinning nano-scaffolds present a novel strategy for the optimization of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.