Electrospinning process, a simple and versatile set up for the fabrication of fibers textiles is capable of mimicking the native extracellular matrix structure. In tissue engineering, there is a need to fabricate electrospun scaffold with moderate mechanical strength which can sustain cyclic stretching to give appropriate mechanical stimulation to stem cell. Besides, the surface topology of the scaffold is also important in cell growth.
Efficacy of aligned poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) nanofibrous scaffolds for tissue engineering is described. Uniaxially aligned PCL fibrous scaffolds of diameter 0.57±0.03μm were fabricated by an electrospinning technique under optimized condition (accelerating voltage: 25kV, rotating speed: 1500rpm, feed rate: 0.5ml/h) and the diameter of the electrospun fibers can easily be tailored by adjusting the feed rate and rotation speed of drum collector. In comparison, randomly oriented PCL scaffold were produced to study the fiber alignment influence in cell behavior. The optimal parameters to fabricate aligned and randomly oriented scaffold were discussed.
The characterization of the scaffolds was carried out. Aligned electrospun scaffold has Young’s modulus of 12.75MPa. It was found that electrospun scaffold is more hydrophobic than casted scaffold. Besides, electrospun scaffold showed higher crystallinity than casted scaffold and aligned scaffold has slightly higher crystallinity than randomly oriented scaffold.
Cell culture of human Mesenchymal Stem Cell (hMSCs) on electrospun scaffolds was carried out to study the cell attachment, proliferation and morphology. Cells attached and proliferated well on electrospun scaffolds compared to casted scaffold as the cell viability measured quantitatively by CCK-8 absorbance at 450nm is higher. The crystal violet staining micrographs showed that the cells grew along the direction of the fiber on aligned scaffold while distributed evenly on casted scaffold. In addition, the cell shape changed from circular shape to spindle-shaped on electrospun scaffold. These implied that the surface topology gives some signal to cell behavior and thus electrospun scaffold is a potential candidate as scaffold for hMSCs.Bachelor of Engineering (Materials Engineering
