Tissue engineering (TE) combines cells, scaffolds, and growth factors to assemble functional tissues for repair or replacement of tissues and organs. Cardiac TE is focused on developing cardiac cells, tissues, and structures—most notably the heart. This review presents the requirements, challenges, and research surrounding electrospun scaffolds and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes (CMs) towards applications to TE hearts. Electrospinning is an attractive fabrication method for cardiac TE scaffolds because it produces fibers that demonstrate the optimal potential for mimicking the complex structure of the cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM). iPSCs theoretically offer the capacity to generate limitless numbers of CMs for use in TE hearts, however these iPSC-CMs are electrophysiologically, morphologically, mechanically, and metabolically immature compared to adult CMs. This presents a functional limitation to their use in cardiac TE, and research aiming to address this limitation is presented in this review.

Polymer scaffolds are increasingly ubiquitous in the field of tissue engineering in improving the repair and regeneration of damaged tissue. Natural polymers exhibit better cellular adhesion and proliferation than biodegradable synthetics but exhibit inferior mechanical properties, among other disadvantages. Synthetic polymers are highly tunable but lack key binding motifs that are present in natural polymers. Using collagen and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) as models for natural and synthetic polymers, respectively, an evaluation of the cellular response of embryonic mouse fibroblasts (NIH 3T3 line) to the different polymer types was conducted. The samples were analyzed using LIVE/DEAD™, alamarBlue™, and phalloidin staining to compare cell proliferation on, interaction with, and adhesion to the scaffolds. The results indicated that NIH3T3 cells prefer collagen-based scaffolds. PLA samples had adhesion at the initial seeding but failed to sustain long-term adhesion, indicating an unsuitable microenvironment. Structural differences between collagen and PLA are responsible for this difference. Incorporating cellular binding mechanisms (i.e., peptide motifs) utilized by natural polymers into biodegradable synthetics offers a promising direction for biomaterials to become biomimetic by combining the advantages of synthetic and natural polymers while minimizing their disadvantages.

Automation and mass-production are two of the many limitations in the tissue engineering industry. Textile fabrication methods such as electrospinning are used extensively in this field because of the resemblance of the extracellular matrix to the fiber structure. However, electrospinning has many limitations, including the ability to mass-produce, automate, and reproduce products. For this reason, this study evaluates the potential use of a traditional textile method such as spinning. Apart from mass production, these methods are also easy, efficient, and cost-effective. This study uses bovine-derived collagen fibers to create yarns using the traditional ring spinning method. The collagen yarns are proven to be biocompatible. Enzymatic biodegradability was also confirmed for its potential use in vivo. The results of this study prove the safety and efficacy of the material and the fabrication method. The material encourages higher cell proliferation and migration compared to tissue culture-treated plastic plates. The process is not only simple but is also streamlined and replicable, resulting in standardized products that can be reproduced.