Selective Degradation of PLGA/PEO Multicompartmental Fibers

Electrohydrodynamic co-jetting is very intriguing technique that produces multicompartmental PLGA microfibers. Expanding on our initial work, we have devised strategies for integrated PLGA/PEO systems, where the PEO component is selectively restricted to one compartment only. We will discuss tetracompartmental PLGA/PEO fibers, which were co-jetted through a configuration containing four jet needles. Selective degradation of the PEO compartments upon immersion in aqueous solution has been demonstrated. Such selective degradation of fibers is an important feature of multicomponent carriers for drug delivery and their controlled releases. Moreover, various fiber shapes have been produced using different configuration of multi-needles, which, in turn, can affect fiber degradation and targeted efficiency of biomolecules. We then proceeded to demonstrate their ability to guide cell adhesion. PLGA fibers were immobilized with fibronectin (FN) by physical adsorption and NIH 3T3 fibroblasts were cultured onto FN-adsorbed PLGA fibers. The cell adhesion, orientation and spreading behavior was found to be depending on fiber properties.