3ddiscovery evolution printer

PCL scaffolds were produced by the Biomaterials Lab, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA; PSU scaffolds were from eSpin Technologies, Chattanooga, TN, USA; PET hernia repair meshes were from Medtronic, Dublin, Ireland. To fabricate scaffolds, PCL (43 kDa, Polysciences; Warrington, PA) was melted at 85°C and printed at a collector velocity of 40 mm s⁻¹, 5.0 kV, 1.0 bar, and at a distance of 10 mm using a 3D Discovery Evolution printer, RegenHU, Switzerland. Scaffolds, designed using computer-aided design software BioCAD (RegenHU, Switzerland), had a filament width of 40 μm and a pore size of 100 × 100, 200 × 200, or 400 × 400 μm.

To fabricate scaffolds, polycaprolactone (PCL; 43 kDa, Polysciences; Warrington, PA) was melted at 85°C and printed at a collector velocity of 40 mm s−1, 5.0 kV, 1.0 bar, at a distance of 10 mm using a 3DDiscovery Evolution printer, RegenHU, Switzerland, located in a laminar flow hood. Scaffolds, designed using computer-aided design software BioCAD (Regenhu, Switzerland), had a filament width of 35 μm and 90% porosity. They were stored in 70% ethanol until their application.
The scaffolds were implanted in parallel to the deep dermis/subcutis interface in mice within a dorsal skinfold chamber system, an optical imaging window that allows for in vivo inspection in real time (Figure 1B), as previously described (Dondossola et al., 2016 (link)). Longitudinal monitoring of the scaffolds started 4 days postimplantation and proceeded up to day 14.
For clodronate treatment experiments, mice implanted with the scaffold in the dorsal skinfold chamber received clodronate liposomes (1 mg/mouse, 200 μL, intravenously, following the manufacturers’ instructions, Liposoma) every two to three days, starting three days before scaffold implantation to deplete macrophages by the day of implantation, as reported (Dondossola et al., 2016 (link)).