Proliferation and differentiation study of melatonin functionalized polycaprolactone/gelatin electrospun fibrous scaffolds for nerve tissue engineering

Tingkuo Chen; Haiming Jiang; Xiang Li; Dao Zhang; Yibin Zhu; Xueliu Chen; Han Yang; Fangcheng Shen; Hongyan Xia; Junxia Zheng; Kang Xie

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.12.074

Proliferation and differentiation study of melatonin functionalized polycaprolactone/gelatin electrospun fibrous scaffolds for nerve tissue engineering

Int J Biol Macromol. 2022 Feb 1:197:103-110. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.12.074. Epub 2021 Dec 27.

Authors

Tingkuo Chen¹, Haiming Jiang¹, Xiang Li¹, Dao Zhang¹, Yibin Zhu¹, Xueliu Chen¹, Han Yang¹, Fangcheng Shen¹, Hongyan Xia², Junxia Zheng³, Kang Xie⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Precision Electronic Manufacturing Technology and Equipment, School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Precision Electronic Manufacturing Technology and Equipment, School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006, China. Electronic address: hyxia@gdut.edu.cn.
³ School of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China. Electronic address: junxiazheng@gdut.edu.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Precision Electronic Manufacturing Technology and Equipment, School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006, China. Electronic address: kangxie@gdut.edu.cn.

PMID: 34968534
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.12.074

Abstract

Melatonin (MLT), a pineal neurohormone with multiple neuroprotective, is often used for peripheral nerve recovery and regenerated nerve proliferation. In this study, Polycaprolactone/Gelatin (PG) fibrous electrospun scaffolds with various percentages of MLT (0, 1, 2, and 4%wt) were fabricated for nerve cell growth, the effects of different concentrations of MLT within PG fibers (PG, PGMLT1, PGMLT2, and PGMLT4) on the proliferation and differentiation for PC12 cells were quantitatively evaluated. The microstructures and morphologies of these scaffolds were analyzed by FE-SEM and digital camera. Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Water Contact Angle (WCA) were used to study the composition, ratio and properties of MLT functionalized PG scaffolds. MTT and CLSM analysis showed that appropriate amount of MLT was beneficial to the proliferation of PC12 cell. MLT can also promote cell differentiation, neurite germination, the expression levels of MAP2 mRNA and protein were dramatically increased on the composite scaffolds with the increase of MLT content, moderate addition of MLT (PGMLT2, 2%) had a prominent enhancement for neurite length. This work would provide a more comprehensive reference for further researches on MLT functionalized composite scaffolds and suggest that high-performance PGMLT fibrous scaffolds could be a promising alternative for nerve repair.

Keywords: Fibrous scaffolds; Melatonin; Nerve tissue engineering; Neural differentiation; Proliferation.

MeSH terms

Tissue Engineering*