ABSTRACT
Tissue engineering (TE) is a swiftly growing biomedical technology that emphasizes the restoration of altered tissue architectures or regeneration of tissues, especially a matter of interest to overcome the shortage of organs for transplantation and associated host-immune rejections. In the last few years, there is dramatic furtherance in the designing and fabrication of frameworks that support cell adherence and their migration to the cellular microenvironment in a controlled manner. The textile-based scaffold is a unique template for TE enabling efficient cell-biomaterial interaction, exchange of nutritional and growth factors as well as waste which permits cellular differentiation, proliferation, and survival. Nanofibrous scaffold exhibits some optimal properties like high porosity with good fibrous interconnections, facilitating adequate cell accommodation, and suitable strength for mechanical support to newly regenerated tissue. The most vital thing concerning TE is biocompatibility, where nanofibers are superior to most of the scaffold material as these can be designed morphologically and chemically similar to the extracellular matrix. Different studies have shown the superior applicability of natural polymer-based nanofiber over synthetic polymers due to nontoxicity and biocompatibility. In the recent trend, nanofibrous textile scaffolds are fabricated from conducting materials. These can modulate in-vivo cell behavior by providing topographical and electrical cues. Such electroactive scaffolds have drawn attention in cardiac, nervous, skeletal, and bone tissue engineering. A spontaneous revolution of nanofibrous textile scaffold applications in hard and soft tissue engineering will be discussed in this chapter.
