Promoted regeneration of mature blood vessels by electrospun fibers with loaded multiple pDNA-calcium phosphate nanoparticles

Vascularization is one of the capital challenges in the establishment of tissue engineering constructs and recovery of ischemic and wounded tissues. The aim of this study was to assess electrospun fibers with loadings of multiple pDNA to allow a localized delivery for an efficient regeneration of mature blood vessels. To induce sufficient protein expression, a reverse microemulsion process was adopted to load pDNA into calcium phosphate nanoparticles (CP-pDNA), which were electrospun into fibers to achieve a sustained release for 4 weeks. Compared with pDNA-infiltrated fibers, the localized and gradual release of pDNA facilitated cell proliferation, gene transfection, and extracellular matrix secretion and enhanced the generation of blood vessels after subcutaneous implantation. Compared with commonly used pDNA polyplexes with poly(ethyleneimine), CP-pDNA nanoparticles induced significantly lower cytotoxicity and less inflammation reaction after implantation into animals. Fibers with encapsulated nanoparticles containing plasmids encoding vascular endothelial growth factor (pVEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factors (pbFGF) led to significantly higher density of mature blood vessels than those containing individual plasmid. It is suggested that the integration of CP-pDNA nanoparticles with loadings of multiple plasmids into fibrous scaffolds should provide clinical relevance for therapeutic vascularization, getting fully vascularized in engineered tissues and regeneration of blood vessel substitutes. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.