Fabrication of poly(glycerol sebacate) fibrous membranes by coaxial electrospinning: Influence of shell and core solutions.

Although poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) has enjoyed great success in soft tissue engineering, it remains challenging to fabricate PGS fibers. In this study, coaxial electrospinning, in which polylactide (PLA) was used to confine and draw PGS prepolymer, was used to fabricate PGS fibrous membranes. Specifically, effects of adding poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), which was removed prior to curing, in the shell were investigated. Transmission and scanning electron microscopy were used to confirm core-shell structure and morphology of fibers, respectively. Both the removal of PEO or PLA in the shell and the efficacy of PGS curing were verified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. Mechanical properties of the membranes with different shell and core contents were examined. We found that the addition of PEO to the shell reduced Young׳s modulus of the resulting cured membrane and increased its elongation at break significantly, the latter indicating better PGS curing. Moreover, with the addition of PEO, increasing PGS prepolymer concentration further increased the elongation at break and appeared to enhance the structural integrity of fibers; PGS fibrous membranes (with no PLA shell) were thus successfully fabricated after the removal of PLA. The Young׳s modulus of the PGS fibrous membrane was ~0.47MPa, which is similar to that of PGS solid sheets and some soft tissues. Finally, the cytocompatibility of the electrospun membranes was validated by Alamar blue and LDH assays.