Well-aligned electrospun PLLA fibers with an average fiber diameter of ca. 1.6 mm were readily produced by using a novel SJES approach. Ellipse-shaped nano-pores were in situ incorporated onto individual fiber surfaces to form nanotopographical features by varying ambient humidity during the SJES process. Biological results indicate a favorable interaction between the vSMCs and the hierarchically structured fiber substrates, leading to enhanced cellular responses including cell adhesion, proliferation, alignment, synthesis of the vascular matrix proteins, and expression of desired contractile phenotype markers. This work thus demonstrated that introduction of surface nanotopography in the form of elliptical nano-pores onto the aligned PLLA fibers allows for enhancing the biomimetic properties of the fibrous substrata by stimulating the vSMC functioning more effectively. We propose that engineering the surface nanotopography of aligned electrospun fibers may be used as an effective means for achieving enhanced and regulatable cellular responses in vascular tissue engineering. It will also provide new ideas for designing and fabricating other biomimetic scaffolds to achieve optimal biological functions. Qihui Zhou et al., Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 2015. Qihui Zhou et al., Polymer, 2013.