Tungsten disulfide nanotubes enhance flow-induced crystallization and radio-opacity of polylactide without adversely affecting in vitro toxicity
Abstract
Treatment of vascular disease, from peripheral ischemia to coronary heart disease (CHD), is poised for transformation with the introduction of transient implants designed to "scaffold" regeneration of blood vessels and ultimately leave nothing behind. Improved materials could expand the use of these devices. Here, we examine one of the leading polymers for bioresorbable scaffolds (BRS), polylactide (PLA), as the matrix of nanocomposites with tungsten disulfide (WS₂) nanotubes (WSNT), which may provide mechanical reinforcement and enhance radio-opacity. We evaluate in vitro cytotoxicity using vascular cells, flow-induced crystallization and radio-opacity of PLA-WSNT nanocomposites at low WSNT concentration. A small amount of WSNT (0.1 wt%) can effectively promote oriented crystallization of PLA without compromising molecular weight. And radio-opacity improves significantly: as little as 0.5 to 1 wt% WSNT doubles the radio-opacity of PLA-WSNT relative to PLA at 17 keV. The results suggest that a single component, WSNT, has the potential to increase the strength of BRS to enable thinner devices and increase radio-opacity to improve intraoperative visualization. The in vitro toxicity results indicate that PLA-WSNT nanocomposites are worthy of investigation in vivo. Although substantial further preclinical studies are needed, PLA-WSNT nanocomposites may provide a complement of material properties that may improve BVS and expand the range of lesions that can be treated using transient implants.
Additional Information
© 2021 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier. Received 26 July 2021, Revised 17 October 2021, Accepted 4 November 2021, Available online 17 November 2021. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. We are grateful to the staff of APS beamline 5-D-D, Steven Weigand and James Rix in particular, for their invaluable assistance in acquiring synchrotron X-ray scattering data. We are also indebted to Dan Zhou, a graduate student in the Kornfield group, Dr. Jeremy Wei, a former research scientist in the Kornfield group, and Mark Ladinsky, a scientist at the Caltech electron microscopy core, for their help in microtoming PLA/PLA-WSNT sections and acquiring GPC data and TEM images respectively. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 691238, the Jacobs Institute for Molecular Engineering for Medicine at Caltech, the Rosen Center for Bioengineering at Caltech, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant (T32GM112592) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH under Award Number F31HL137308. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.Attached Files
Accepted Version - nihms-1757868.pdf
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1742706121007467-mmc1.docx
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1742706121007467-mmc2.zip
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1742706121007467-mmc3.zip
Files
Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC9505057
- Eprint ID
- 112183
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.actbio.2021.11.005
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20211202-230941847
- DE-AC02-06CH11357
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- 691238
- Marie Curie Fellowship
- Jacobs Institute for Molecular Engineering for Medicine
- Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center
- T32GM112592
- NIH Predoctoral Fellowship
- F31HL137308
- NIH Postdocotral Fellowship
- Created
-
2021-12-03Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2023-07-06Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Jacobs Institute for Molecular Engineering for Medicine, Rosen Bioengineering Center