Journal
ADVANCED HEALTHCARE MATERIALS
Volume 8, Issue 21, Pages -Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201900913
Keywords
electrospinning; freeze-drying; nerve guidance conduit; nerve regeneration; sponge fillers
Funding
- National Key RAMP
- D Program of China [2017YFC1103800]
- major special projects of Technological Innovation of Hubei Province [2017ACA168]
- Science and Technology Support Program of Hubei Province [2015BCE022]
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Nerve guide conduits (NGCs) with geometric design have shown significant advantages in guidance of nerve reinnervation across the defect of injured peripheral nerves. It is realized that intraluminal fillers with distinctive structure can effectively provide an inner guidance for sprouting of axons and improve the permeability of NGC. In this work, a poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) NGC is prepared containing intraluminal sponge fillers (labeled as ISF-NGC) and used for reconstruction of a rat sciatic nerve with a 10 mm gap. For comparison, the same procedure is applied to a single hollow PLGA NGC (labeled as H-NGC) and an autologous nerve. As evidenced by significantly improved nerve morphology and function, the ISF-NGC achieves a superior nerve repair effect over H-NGC, which is comparable to autologous nerve grafting. It is likely that the H-NGC only provides a protected tunnel for nerve fiber regrowth and axonal extension, while ISF-NGC offers an extracellular matrix-mimetic architecture as autograft to provide contact guidance for nerve reinnervation. This newly developed ISF-NGC is a promising candidate to aid nerve reinnervation across longer gaps commonly encountered in clinical cases.
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