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Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles
Tendon and ligament injuries are triggered by mechanical loading, but the specific mechanisms are not yet clearly identified. It is well established however, that the inflection and transition points in tendon stress-strain curves represent thresholds that may signal the onset of irreversible fibril...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8056020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33889568 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.626433 |
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author | Sensini, Alberto Santare, Michael H. Eichenlaub, Emily Bloom, Ellen Gotti, Carlo Zucchelli, Andrea Cristofolini, Luca |
author_facet | Sensini, Alberto Santare, Michael H. Eichenlaub, Emily Bloom, Ellen Gotti, Carlo Zucchelli, Andrea Cristofolini, Luca |
author_sort | Sensini, Alberto |
collection | PubMed |
description | Tendon and ligament injuries are triggered by mechanical loading, but the specific mechanisms are not yet clearly identified. It is well established however, that the inflection and transition points in tendon stress-strain curves represent thresholds that may signal the onset of irreversible fibrillar sliding. This phenomenon often results in a progressive macroscopic failure of these tissues. With the aim to simulate and replace tendons, electrospinning has been demonstrated to be a suitable technology to produce nanofibers similar to the collagen fibrils in a mat form. These nanofibrous mats can be easily assembled in higher hierarchical levels to reproduce the whole tissue structure. Despite the fact that several groups have developed electrospun tendon-inspired structures, an investigation of the inflection and transition point mechanics is missing. Comparing their behavior with that of the natural counterpart is important to adequately replicate their behavior at physiological strain levels. To fill this gap, in this work fascicle-inspired electrospun nylon 6,6 bundles were produced with different collector peripheral speeds (i.e., 19.7 m s(–1); 13.7 m s(–1); 7.9 m s(–1)), obtaining different patterns of nanofibers alignment. The scanning electron microcopy revealed a fibril-inspired structure of the nanofibers with an orientation at the higher speed similar to those in tendons and ligaments (T/L). A tensile mechanical characterization was carried out showing an elastic-brittle biomimetic behavior for the higher speed bundles with a progressively more ductile behavior at slower speeds. Moreover, for each sample category the transition and the inflection points were defined to study how these points can shift with the nanofiber arrangement and to compare their values with those of tendons. The results of this study will be of extreme interest for the material scientists working in the field, to model and improve the design of their electrospun structures and scaffolds and enable building a new generation of artificial tendons and ligaments. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8056020 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80560202021-04-21 Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles Sensini, Alberto Santare, Michael H. Eichenlaub, Emily Bloom, Ellen Gotti, Carlo Zucchelli, Andrea Cristofolini, Luca Front Bioeng Biotechnol Bioengineering and Biotechnology Tendon and ligament injuries are triggered by mechanical loading, but the specific mechanisms are not yet clearly identified. It is well established however, that the inflection and transition points in tendon stress-strain curves represent thresholds that may signal the onset of irreversible fibrillar sliding. This phenomenon often results in a progressive macroscopic failure of these tissues. With the aim to simulate and replace tendons, electrospinning has been demonstrated to be a suitable technology to produce nanofibers similar to the collagen fibrils in a mat form. These nanofibrous mats can be easily assembled in higher hierarchical levels to reproduce the whole tissue structure. Despite the fact that several groups have developed electrospun tendon-inspired structures, an investigation of the inflection and transition point mechanics is missing. Comparing their behavior with that of the natural counterpart is important to adequately replicate their behavior at physiological strain levels. To fill this gap, in this work fascicle-inspired electrospun nylon 6,6 bundles were produced with different collector peripheral speeds (i.e., 19.7 m s(–1); 13.7 m s(–1); 7.9 m s(–1)), obtaining different patterns of nanofibers alignment. The scanning electron microcopy revealed a fibril-inspired structure of the nanofibers with an orientation at the higher speed similar to those in tendons and ligaments (T/L). A tensile mechanical characterization was carried out showing an elastic-brittle biomimetic behavior for the higher speed bundles with a progressively more ductile behavior at slower speeds. Moreover, for each sample category the transition and the inflection points were defined to study how these points can shift with the nanofiber arrangement and to compare their values with those of tendons. The results of this study will be of extreme interest for the material scientists working in the field, to model and improve the design of their electrospun structures and scaffolds and enable building a new generation of artificial tendons and ligaments. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8056020/ /pubmed/33889568 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.626433 Text en Copyright © 2021 Sensini, Santare, Eichenlaub, Bloom, Gotti, Zucchelli and Cristofolini. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Bioengineering and Biotechnology Sensini, Alberto Santare, Michael H. Eichenlaub, Emily Bloom, Ellen Gotti, Carlo Zucchelli, Andrea Cristofolini, Luca Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles |
title | Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles |
title_full | Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles |
title_fullStr | Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles |
title_full_unstemmed | Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles |
title_short | Tuning the Structure of Nylon 6,6 Electrospun Bundles to Mimic the Mechanical Performance of Tendon Fascicles |
title_sort | tuning the structure of nylon 6,6 electrospun bundles to mimic the mechanical performance of tendon fascicles |
topic | Bioengineering and Biotechnology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8056020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33889568 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.626433 |
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