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Essay / What are nanofibers? - 523
Nanotechnology, particularly nanofibers, is attracting increasing interest for tissue engineering applications [1]. The large surface-to-volume ratio is the unique property of nanofibers, which enables cell migration and proliferation in tissue engineering scaffolds [2]. The scaffold can be fabricated by several methods including solvent casting, particle leaching, phase separation, emulsion freeze drying, 3D printing technique and many others [3]. However, the simplicity of electrospinning provides an advantage for constructing nanofibrous scaffolds [4]. Electrospinning is the most efficient method to fabricate continuous nanofibers from synthetic and natural polymers. This method can produce polymer fibers with diameters ranging from micrometers to nanometers [5]. Due to the bulk of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of natural tissues, it is composed of a cross-linked network of collagen fibrils with a diameter between 15 µm and 5 nm, which human cells deposit and organize around these fibrils [6]. Thus, the electrospinning technique has been of interest for artificial m...