Hu, C;
Grech-Sollars, M;
Statton, B;
Li, Z;
Gao, F;
Williams, GR;
Parker, GJM;
(2023)
Direct jet coaxial electrospinning of axon-mimicking fibers for diffusion tensor imaging.
Polymers for Advanced Technologies
10.1002/pat.6073.
(In press).
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Abstract
Hollow polymer microfibers with variable microstructural and hydrophilic properties were proposed as building elements to create axon-mimicking phantoms for validation of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The axon-mimicking microfibers were fabricated in a mm-thick 3D anisotropic fiber strip, by direct jet coaxial electrospinning of PCL/polysiloxane-based surfactant (PSi) mixture as shell and polyethylene oxide (PEO) as core. Hydrophilic PCL-PSi fiber strips were first obtained by carefully selecting appropriate solvents for the core and appropriate fiber collector rotating and transverse speeds. The porous cross-section and anisotropic orientation of axon-mimicking fibers were then quantitatively evaluated using two ImageJ plugins—nearest distance (ND) and directionality based on their scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. Third, axon-mimicking phantom was constructed from PCL-PSi fiber strips with variable porous-section and fiber orientation and tested on a 3T clinical MR scanner. The relationship between DTI measurements (mean diffusivity [MD] and fractional anisotropy [FA]) of phantom samples and their pore size and fiber orientation was investigated. Two key microstructural parameters of axon-mimicking phantoms including normalized pore distance and dispersion of fiber orientation could well interpret the variations in DTI measurements. Two PCL-PSi phantom samples made from different regions of the same fiber strips were found to have similar MD and FA values, indicating that the direct jet coaxial electrospun fiber strips had consistent microstructure. More importantly, the MD and FA values of the developed axon-mimicking phantoms were mostly in the biologically relevant range.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Direct jet coaxial electrospinning of axon-mimicking fibers for diffusion tensor imaging |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/pat.6073 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/pat.6073 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Authors. Polymers for Advanced Technologies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | axon microstructure, coaxial electrospinning, diffusion phantoms, diffusion tensor imaging, hollow microfibers |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy > Pharmaceutics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170722 |
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