Biodegradable highly porous interconnected poly(ε‐caprolactone)/poly(L‐lactide‐co‐ε‐caprolactone) scaffolds by supercritical foaming for small‐diameter vascular tissue engineering
Abstract
Biodegradable ϕ 4 mm tubular porous poly(ε‐caprolactone)/poly(L‐lactide‐co‐ε‐caprolactone) (PCL/PLCL) scaffolds are fabricated successfully via one‐step microcellular supercritical carbon dioxide foaming process. The effect of blending ratio on the rheology, pore structures, mechanical property, wettability, and biocompatibility of PCL/PLCL blends tubular scaffold are reported. Rheological results show that PCL matrix and PLCL dispersed phase has good compatibility. The melt strength of PCL can be enhanced obviously by adding PLCL. With an increase of PLCL content from 10 to 30 wt%, the pore size increases from 7.6 to 24.9 μm due to the homogeneous nucleation effect. The maximum open‐cell content can reach 77% for PCL/PLCL foamed sample. Cyclical tensile and compliance tests show that few content of dispersed PLCL (10–20 wt%) improves the flexibility and recoverability. Cell viability results demonstrate that human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) cultured on all PCL/PLCL porous scaffolds exhibit a typical spindle‐like cell morphology. Moreover, HUVECs have a higher density and spreading areas on surface of 10% PLCL scaffold. The results gathered in this paper may open a new perspective for the fabrication of small‐diameter vascular tissue engineering scaffold.
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PLCL scaffolds prepared by supercritical carbon dioxide contain abundant pore structure, facilitating cell adhesion and proliferation, interstitial fluid transport, and vascular and tissue ingrowth, with applications in bone, nerve, vascular, and cartilage repair.
“In addition, PLCL scaffolds prepared by the supercritical carbon dioxide method contain abundant pore structure, which facilitates cell adhesion and proliferation, interstitial fluid transport, and vascular and tissue ingrowth within the scaffold, so they have many applications in bone tissue engineering, nerve tissue engineering, vascular tissue engineering and cartilage repair [13, 118–120].”
From Application of PLCL as a biodegradable polymer in biomedical engineering (2026) · cites this paper as [120]
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- Authors
- Cao, Y., Jiang, J., Jiang, Y., Li, Z., Hou, J., & Li, Q.
- Affiliations
- Zhengzhou University (CN)
- Venue
- Polymers for Advanced Technologies
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2021-10-12
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 440-451
- ISSN
- 1042-7147 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-1581
- OpenAlex
- W3206396490
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 4
- FWCI
- 1.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Polymers for Advanced Technologies (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- International Science and Technology Cooperation Programme
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Polymers and Plastics › Polymer Foaming and Composites
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Biomaterials › biodegradable polymer synthesis and properties
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Bone Tissue Engineering Materials
- Keywords
- polycaprolactone, poly(L-lactide-co-ε-caprolactone), supercritical CO2 foaming, microcellular foaming, pore structure, melt strength, rheology, wettability, mechanical properties, biocompatibility, human umbilical vein endothelial cells, biodegradable polymers
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