Investigation on artificial blood vessels prepared from bacterial cellulose

BC (bacterial cellulose) exhibits quite distinctive properties than plant cellulose. The outstanding properties make BC a promising material for preparation of artificial blood vessel. By taking advantage of the high oxygen permeability of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) as a tubular template material, a series of BC tubes with a length of 100 mm, a thickness of 1 mm and an outer diameter of 4 or 6 mm were biosynthesized with the help of Gluconacetobacter xylinum. Through characterization by SEM (scanning electron microscope), tensile testing and thermal analysis, it is demonstrated that BC tubes are good enough for artificial blood vessel with elaborated nano-fiber architecture, qualified mechanical properties and high thermal stability. In addition, measurement of biocompatibility also shows that BC tubes are greatly adaptable to the in vivo environment. The results indicate that BC tubes have great potential for being utilized as tubular scaffold materials in the field of tissue engineering. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.