Tailoring the wettability and mechanical properties of electrospun poly (L-lactic acid)-poly(glycerol sebacate) core-shell membranes for biomedical applications

Tissue and biomedical engineering fields are in constant mutation and in searching for innovative processing techniques capable to tailor the material properties. In this work, poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and elastomeric poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) were dissolved in the same solvents and electrospun together, in a single needle system. A core-shell structure where the hydrophilic PGS was placed onto the surface of the hydrophobic PLLA fibre was obtained for elastomeric concentrations up to 25 wt%. It was found that the PLLA:PGS blends are immiscible and the blends present the melting temperatures of the individual polymers. Moreover, their surface properties were deeply influenced by the presence of the PGS, and a superhydrophilic membrane was obtained, after PGS curing at 120 degrees C for 48 h. When the concentration of PGS is up to 25 wt%, the blend's Young modulus decreases from similar to 35.9 +/- 7.1 to 7.5 +/- 1.4 MPa and a twofold improvement in the sample stretchability was observed, compared with the pristine PLLA electrospun samples. Finally, in vitro hypothalamus A59 nerve cell culture shows that the core-shell electrospun samples enhanced cell adhesion and proliferation, suggesting that these developed materials have great potentials for nerve regeneration and biomedical engineering applications. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.