Preparation of poly(glycerol sebacate) fibers for tissue engineering applications

Poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) was discovered in the previous decade and is a promising bioelastomer with tuneable mechanical, biodegradable and biocompatible properties. Despite of these superiorities, PGS possesses solubility and processability disadvantages. To overcome these drawbacks of PGS, blends could be formed with a polymer which is soluble in a common solvent with PGS prepolymer, having a melting temperature above the crosslinking temperature and which can be removed from the structure after crosslinking. In this study, PGS fibers were fabricated for the first time using pressurized gyration as scaffolds. Fibers were obtained through blending the synthesized PGS prepolymer with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) to overcome solubility/melting drawbacks of crosslinked PGS polymer. Obtained fiber diameters have a narrow size distribution which did not change after thermal crosslinking. After the washing procedure, ∼25% decrease in the average fiber diameter was observed due to the PVA removal. Resulting PGS fibers were characterized in terms of chemical structure, morphology, and cell viability. Fibroblast cell adhesion and spreading on three-dimensional fiber networks were determined by microscopy. PGS fibers supported cell adhesion and proliferation. After 7 days of cell-PGS fiber interactions, cell proliferation and spreading increased without any toxicity.