poly (ε‑caprolactone)‑based electrospun nano‑featured substrate for tissue engineering applications: a review

The restoration of normal functioning of damaged body tissues is one of the major objectives of tissue engineering. scaffolds are generally used as artifcial supports and as substrates for regenerating new tissues and should closely mimic natural extracellular matrix (ecm). the materials used for fabricating scafolds must be biocompatible, non-cytotoxic and bioabsorbable/biodegradable. for this application, specifcally biopolymers such as pla, pga, ptmc, pcl etc. satisfying the above criteria are promising materials. poly(ε-caprolactone) (pcl) is one such potential candidate which can be blended with other materials forming blends, copolymers and composites with the essential physiochemical and mechanical properties as per the requirement. nanofbrous scafolds are fabricated by various techniques such as template synthesis, fber drawing, phase separation, self-assembly, electrospinning etc. among which electrospinning is the most popular and versatile technique. it is a clean, simple, tunable and viable technique for fabrication of polymer-based nanofbrous scafolds. the design and fabrication of electrospun nanofbrous scafolds are of intense research interest over the recent years. these scafolds ofer a unique architecture at nano-scale with desired porosity for selective movement of small molecules and form a suitable three-dimensional matrix similar to ecm. this review focuses on pcl synthesis, modifcations, properties and scafold fabrication techniques aiming at the targeted tissue engineering applications.