Department of Bioengineering and Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal; Associate Laboratory i4HB, Institute for Health and Bioeconomy, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
Department of Bioengineering and Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal; Associate Laboratory i4HB, Institute for Health and Bioeconomy, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
Biomater Adv. 2022 Jun;137:212808. doi: 10.1016/j.bioadv.2022.212808. Epub 2022 Apr 19.
The use of smart materials in tissue engineering is becoming increasingly appealing to provide additional functionalities and control over cell fate. The stages of tissue development and regeneration often require various electrical and electromechanical cues supported by the extracellular matrix, which is often neglected in most tissue engineering approaches. Particularly, in cardiac cells, electrical signals modulate cell activity and are responsible for the maintenance of the excitation-contraction coupling. Addition of electroconductive and topographical cues improves the biomimicry of cardiac tissues and plays an important role in driving cells towards the desired phenotype. Current platforms used to apply electrical stimulation to cells in vitro often require large external equipment and wires and electrodes immersed in the culture media, limiting the scalability and applicability of this process. Piezoelectric materials represent a shift in paradigm in materials and methods aimed at providing electrical stimulation to cardiac cells since they can produce and deliver electrical signals to cells and tissues by mechanoelectrical transduction. Despite the ability of piezoelectric materials to mimic the mechanoelectrical transduction of the heart, the use of these materials is limited in cardiac tissue engineering and methods to characterise piezoelectricity are often built in-house, which poses an additional difficulty when comparing results from the literature. In this work, we aim at providing an overview of the main challenges in cardiac tissue engineering and how piezoelectric materials could offer a solution to them. A revision on the existing literature in electrospun piezoelectric materials applied to cardiac tissue engineering is performed for the first time, as electrospinning plays an important role in the manufacturing of scaffolds with enhanced piezoelectricity and extracellular matrix native-like morphology. Finally, an overview of the current techniques used to evaluate piezoelectricity and their limitations is provided.
在组织工程中使用智能材料正变得越来越有吸引力，因为它可以提供额外的功能并控制细胞命运。组织发育和再生的各个阶段通常需要各种电和机电信号来支持细胞，而这在大多数组织工程方法中往往被忽视。特别是在心脏细胞中，电信号调节细胞活动，是维持兴奋-收缩偶联的关键。添加导电和形貌信号可以提高心脏组织的仿生学特性，并在促使细胞向所需表型发展方面发挥重要作用。目前用于在体外向细胞施加电刺激的平台通常需要大型外部设备和浸入培养基中的电线和电极，这限制了该过程的可扩展性和适用性。压电材料代表了一种在材料和方法上的转变，旨在为心脏细胞提供电刺激，因为它们可以通过机电转换产生并向细胞和组织传递电信号。尽管压电材料能够模拟心脏的机电转换，但这些材料在心脏组织工程中的应用受到限制，并且表征压电性的方法通常是内部构建的，这在比较文献中的结果时增加了额外的难度。在这项工作中，我们旨在概述心脏组织工程中的主要挑战以及压电材料如何为这些挑战提供解决方案。首次对应用于心脏组织工程的电纺压电材料的现有文献进行了综述，因为电纺在制造具有增强压电性和类似细胞外基质形态的支架方面发挥着重要作用。最后，概述了当前用于评估压电性的技术及其局限性。
