Electrospun poly (glycerol sebacate) (PGS) membranes for corneal tissue engineering

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mame.202500163

The demand for corneal tissue replacements increases due to corneal diseases, prompting the exploration of tissue engineering (TE) solutions using biopolymers. Poly (glycerol sebacate) (PGS) is one of the promising biomaterials to be explored in the ocular TE, not only because of its biocompatibility, biodegradability, and elasticity, but also its transparency. However, its low molecular weight and low glass transition temperature (Tg) make PGS scaffold fabrication via electrospinning challenging. Here, we fabricated fibrous membranes by electrospinning of PGS and poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) blend and obtained a membrane composed of homogenous fibers with a diameter of 4 µm and a porosity of 28%. In addition, the membrane exhibited a stiffness of 12 MPa and strain of 20%. The permeability of the membrane closely resembled that of the natural cornea with 9.8E-07 cm2/s. Most of the PVA was successfully washed off, resulting in biocompatible scaffold that was able to support the proliferation of human corneal epithelial cells (HCEC) and human corneal endothelial cells (HCEndC) for a week. According to the in vitro biocompatibility assay, HCEC has demonstrated an 88% and HCEndC a 96% viability on electrospun PGS membranes. These results demonstrate the suitability of electrospun PGS membrane for cornea tissue engineering.