Bio-inspired anisotropic polymeric heart valves exhibiting valve-like mechanical and hemodynamic behavior

Herein, two types of silk fibroin (SF) fiber membranes with anisotropic (ASF) and isotropic (ISF) properties were prepared by electrospinning, and were further combined with poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels to serve as polymeric heart valve (PHV) substitutes (PEGDA-ASF and PEGDA-ISF)... ...The PHVs from both PEGDA-ASF and PEGDA-ISF presented appropriate hydrodynamic properties from pulse duplicator tests according to the ISO 5840-3 standard.... ...The Gauss curvature analysis also indicated that the anisotropic PEGDA-ASF valve can produce appropriate surface morphology by dynamically adjusting the movement of bending area during the opening process... … 1c, d). Pulse duplicator tests In vitro hemodynamic properties of PHVs were tested in a 0.9% saline solution using a pulse duplicator system (Vivitro Labs, Inc., British Columbia, Canada) according to the ISO 5840-3 standard [21] …