Journal
NATURE MATERIALS
Volume 8, Issue 12, Pages 986-992Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NMAT2558
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health [EB02425]
- Aircast Foundation
- Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders [AR050950]
- Directorate For Engineering
- Div Of Engineering Education and Centers [0754741] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Div Of Engineering Education and Centers
- Directorate For Engineering [1062672] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Successful engineering of load-bearing tissues requires recapitulation of their complex mechanical functions. Given the intimate relationship between function and form, biomimetic materials that replicate anatomic form are of great interest for tissue engineering applications. However, for complex tissues such as the annulus fibrosus, scaffolds have failed to capture their multi-scale structural hierarchy. Consequently, engineered tissues have yet to reach functional equivalence with their native counterparts. Here, we present a novel strategy for annulus fibrosus tissue engineering that replicates this hierarchy with anisotropic nanofibrous laminates seeded with mesenchymal stem cells. These scaffolds directed the deposition of an organized, collagen-rich extracellular matrix that mimicked the angle-ply, multi-lamellar architecture and achieved mechanical parity with native tissue after 10 weeks of in vitro culture. Furthermore, we identified a novel role for inter-lamellar shearing in reinforcing the tensile response of biologic laminates, a mechanism that has not previously been considered for these tissues.
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