Electrospun chitosan-graft-poly (ε-caprolactone)/poly (ε-caprolactone) nanofibrous scaffolds for retinal tissue engineering

Abstract

Honglin Chen1,2, Xianqun Fan1, Jing Xia1, Ping Chen1, Xiaojian Zhou1, Jin Huang2, Jiahui Yu2, Ping Gu11Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China; 2Institutes for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai, ChinaAbstract: A promising therapy for retinal diseases is to employ biodegradable scaffolds to deliver retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) for repairing damaged or diseased retinal tissue. In the present study, cationic chitosan-graft-poly(ε-caprolactone)/polycaprolactone (CS-PCL/PCL) hybrid scaffolds were successfully prepared by electrospinning. Characterization of the obtained nanofibrous scaffolds indicated that zeta-potential, fiber diameter, and the content of amino groups on their surface were closely correlated with the amount of CS-PCL in CS-PCL/PCL scaffolds. To assess the cell–scaffold interaction, mice RPCs (mRPCs) were cultured on the electrospun scaffolds for 7 days. In-vitro proliferation assays revealed that mRPCs proliferated faster on the CS-PCL/PCL (20/80) scaffolds than the other electrospun scaffolds. Scanning electron microscopy and the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction results showed that mRPCs grown on CS-PCL/PCL (20/80) scaffolds were more likely to differentiate towards retinal neurons than those on PCL scaffolds. Taken together, these results suggest that CS-PCL/PCL(20/80) scaffolds have potential application in retinal tissue engineering.Keywords: electrospun, retinal progenitor cells, proliferation, differentiation, tissue engineering