Wound infection is a significant burden on public health. Most present antibacterial agents are typically toxic and devoid of long-term durability. We reported an antimicrobial microcapsule with Chinese nutgall (CN) encapsulated, which was a plant-derived extraction. It is biocompatible and has been used in traditional medicine systems. Sodium alginate (SA) and chitosan worked as shells. The promise of the design is to adopt biocompatible natural polymers and electrostatic attractive chitosan and SA form stable shells to keep long-term release of CN. The results exhibited microcapsules with integrated performance of biocompatibility, long-term durability (inhibition rate of 98.99% against S. aureus after 12 h and 100% after 12 h, 99.61% against E. coli after 6 h and 100% after 12 h), high antibacterial efficacy (with S. aureus inhibition zones of 7.67 mm and E. coli inhibition zones of 5.27 mm) and ease of storage (-20°C for more than 60 h). Their successful fabrication may provide new insights into application of traditional cotton gauze in a sustainable and multifunctional form.

The use of tissue engineering to regenerate viable tissue relies on selecting the appropriate cell line, developing a resorbable scaffold and optimizing the culture conditions including the use of biomolecular cues and sometimes mechanical stimulation. This review of the literature focuses on the required scaffold properties, including the polymer material, the structural design, the total porosity, pore size distribution, mechanical performance, physical integrity in multiphase structures as well as surface morphology, rate of resorption and biocompatibility. The chapter will explain the unique advantages of using textile technologies for tissue engineering scaffold fabrication, and will delineate the differences in design, fabrication and performance of woven, warp and weft knitted, braided, nonwoven and electrospun scaffolds. In addition, it will explain how different types of tissues can be regenerated by each textile technology for a particular clinical application. The use of different synthetic and natural resorbable polymer fibers will be discussed, as well as the need for specialized finishing techniques such as heat setting, cross linking, coating and impregnation, depending on the tissue engineering application.

Polymeric bioresorbable stents (PBRSs) are considered the most promising devices to treat cardiovascular diseases. However, the mechanical weakness still hampers their application. In general, PBRSs are crimped into small sheathes and re-expanded to support narrowed vessels during angioplasty. Accordingly, one of the most significant requirements of PBRSs is to maintain mechanical efficacy after implantation. Although a little research has focused on commercial balloon-expanding PBRSs, a near-total lack has appeared on self-expanding PBRSs and their deformation mechanisms. In this work, self-expanding, composite polymeric bioresorbable stents (cPBRSs) incorporating poly(p-dioxanone) (PPDO) and polycaprolactone (PCL) yarns were produced and evaluated for their in vitro crimping and expanding potential. Furthermore, the polymer time-reliable viscoelastic effects of the structural and mechanical behavior of the cPBRSs were analyzed using computational simulations. Our results showed that the crimping process inevitably decreased the mechanical resistance of the cPBRSs, but that this could be offset by balloon dilatation. Moreover, deformation mechanisms at the yarn level were discussed, and yarns bonded in the crossings showed more viscous behavior; this property might help cPBRSs to maintain their structural integrity during implantation.