Living nanofiber yarn-based woven biotextiles for tendon tissue engineering using cell tri-culture and mechanical stimulation

The study develops polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofiber yarn–based woven biotextiles that mimic tendon ECM architecture. Compared with electrospun random or aligned meshes, the woven fabrics show ~12 µm mean pore size (vs. ~2 µm and ~1.4 µm), superior anisotropic tensile properties, and support enhanced cell viability, proliferation, and deep infiltration. Human adipose-derived MSCs (HADMSC), human tenocytes (HT), and HUVECs in mono-, co-, and tri-culture on the woven scaffolds exhibit upregulated tenogenic markers (SCX, TNC, COL1, COL3, TNMD) and endothelial markers when HUVECs are included. Under dynamic stretch, total collagen content and tendon-associated protein/gene expression further increase, indicating the platform’s promise for engineered tendon grafts.