Fully biodegradable self-rolled polymer tubes: a candidate for tissue engineering scaffolds

We report an approach for the fabrication of fully biodegradable self-rolled tubes based on patterned polysuccinimide/polycaprolactone bilayers. These polymers are biocompatible, biodegradable, produced industrially, and are already approved for biomedical purposes. Both polycaprolactone and polysuccinimide are hydrophobic and intrinsically water-insoluble. Polysuccinimide, however, hydrolyzes in physiological buffer environment yielding water-swellable polyaspartic acid that causes the rolling of the polymer bilayer and formation of tubes. We demonstrate the possibility to encapsulate yeast cells using self-rolled tubes.