Circumferentially oriented collagen nanofibers on the cylindrical structure

This paper presents a new method to align collagen nanofibers on arbitrary-shaped 3-dimensional (3D) surfaces, and applies the method to align collagen nanofibers and cells in circumferential directions on cylindrical surfaces. In this work, collagen nanofibers are self-aligned on 3D surfaces by applying cyclic stretch during the gelation process of collagen solution. Furthermore, the aligned collagen nanofibers induce the alignment of cells on 3D surfaces without any mechanical force within the cultivation period. We believe that this method for collagen and cell alignments contributes to the regenerative medicine, which needs a scaffold that provides microenvironments and biological structures on 3-dimensional surfaces of tissues and organs.