Electrospinning of fucoidan/chitosan/poly(vinyl alcohol) scaffolds for vascular tissue engineering

The formation of thrombosis has limited the applications of small diameter vascular in cardiovascular diseases. In order to improve the anticoagulant activities of scaffolds, this study combined fucoidan with CS/PVA and investigated the complete physicochemical and mechanical characterization of the scaffolds to evaluate the feasibility of Fucoidan/CS/PVA scaffolds used in vascular tissue engineering. The SEM graphs show a well defined and interconnected pore structure and the nanofiber diameters are ranging from 341 nm to 482 nm. After immersing in PBS for 5 days, the tensile strength of the crosslinked scaffolds was 722±38 kPa while the elongation at break was 35.5±1.6 %. Besides, added with fucoidan, the scafflolds showed lower rate of plate adhesion (14.75±2.10 %) and markedly prolonged the APTT and TT. Furthermore, owing to the great water uptake ability, sufficient porosity, enhanced drug release and low cytotoxicity, the Fucoidan/CS/PVA scaffolds might be used for vascular tissue engineering with good prospect.