Heparan sulfate/collagen nerve tissue-engineered scaffolds repair peripheral nerve injury / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Nerve tissue-engineered scaffolds must have axial y aligned structures, that can promote oriented growth of new axons, to guarantee the effective repair and regeneration of damaged nerves. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of heparin sulfate/col agen nerve tissue-engineered scaffolds on peripheral nerve injury repair. METHODS: Heparin sulfate/col agen nerve tissue-engineered scaffolds were prepared, and its internal structure and porosity was observed and measured. Then rat Schwann cel s were seeded on the scaffolds to observe cel adhesion. Afterwards, 32 rats undergoing removal of left sciatic nerve were randomly divided into two groups (n=16 per group), and the rats were implanted by heparin sulfate/col agen nerve tissue-ergineered scaffolds as experimentd group, and the rats were implanted by autdogous sciatic nerve as control group. At 16 weeks after implantation, diameter, thickness of myelin sheath as wel as density of myelinated nerve fiber, the percentage of neural tissue and electrophysiology was detected, respectively. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The tissue-engineered scaffolds whose porosity was 91% were composed of microtubules arranging paral el y along the axial direction, and the microtubule diameter was 180 μm; the scaffolds had good biocompatibility with the Schwann cel s. In addition, at 16 weeks after implantation, no significant differences were found in myelin sheath thickness, myelinated nerve fiber density, as wel as conduction velocity and latency of motor and sensory nerves between two groups;compared with the control group, diameter of myelinated nerve fiber, percentage of neural tissue and amplitude of motor and sensory nerves in the experimental group were significantly decreased (P < 0.05). To conclude, the heparin sulfate/col agen nerve tissue-engineered scaffold can effectively repair peripheral nerve injury, but its effect is weaker than that of autologous nerve repair.