| 초록 |
Restoration with sufficient functional recovery after peripheral nerve injury continues to be a clinical challenge. Artificial nerve guide conduit to bridge the gap between severed nerve stumps is widely accepted as a useful alternative that creates a favorable microenvironment for axonal regeneration, is free of the limitations of natural grafts, and requires no immunosuppressants. Although the nerve guide conduits have been fabricated by many methods such as immersion precipitation, casting, and extrusion, their permeability which should prevent fibrous scar tissue invasion but allow nutrient supply and residual organic solvent are still remained as limitations. In this study, we developed a novel method to fabricate a nerve guide conduit with the porosity of submicron pore sizes (to prevent fibrous tissue infiltration) and hydrophilicity (for effective oxygen and nutrient permeation) using poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and Pluronic F127 by modified immersion precipitation method designed by our laboratory. In this method, PLGA and Pluronic F127 were dissolved in tetraglycol which is nontoxic cosolvent. The porous and hydrophilized PLGA tubes were simply fabricated by immersing of crosslinked rod-shape alginate into PLGA/F127 mixture solution. The thickness and inner diameter of tubes could be easily controlled by adjusting immersing time and diameter of crosslinked rod-shape alginate, respectively.
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