Micro-grooved nerve guidance conduits combined with microfiber for rat sciatic nerve regeneration

Abstract In order to accelerate the regeneration of injured nerves, highly aligned structures that mimic native tissues are essential for nerve guidance conduits (NGC). In this study, a biodegradable porous micro-patterned NGCs were manufactured by use of capillary force lithography and salt leaching method, which filled as wrapped with aligned electrospun microfiber (PA-NGC) using. These combined NGC showed 5 µm aligned groove pattern on the interior wall and were filled with 4–5 µm align fibers for a fascicular structure to mimic the native nerve. The highly aligned structure has increased PC12 migration and morphological elongation compared with random microfiber. For the in vivo study, we bridged in the 10 mm sciatic nerve defect margins with NGC. The PA-NGC were compared to flat NGCs filled with random (FR-NGC) or aligned fiber (FA-NGC) and patterned NGCs filled with random fiber (PR-NGC). The PA-NGC showed as dramatically re-bridged neurofilament and higher sciatic function index, onset-to-peak of amplitude, muscle weight and fiber diameter compared to other groups after 8 weeks of implantation. In our results, the PA-NGC not only can serve as a design for functional NGC without growth factor but also can be used in clinical application for peripheral nerve regeneration.