Role of fiber diameter in adhesion and proliferation of NIH 3T3 fibroblast on electrospun polycaprolactone scaffolds

The goal of the current study was to find the quantitative relationship between electrospun polycaprolactone scaffold fiber diameter and NIH 3T3 fibroblast adhesion and growth kinetics. By varying 3 important process parameters-solution concentration, voltage, and collector screen distance-different average fiber diameters ranging from 117 to 1,647nm were obtained. Although 117nm represented the lowest possible fiber diameter obtainable, these fibers had beads in them. An increase in fiber diameter to 428nm led to uniform fibers without any beads. Fiber distribution pattern was a single mode for all the scaffolds except at the largest-diameter end. The diameter distribution changed from single to bimodal at 1,647 nm, suggesting some instability in the process. It was found that cell adhesion and growth kinetics are significantly affected as a function of fiber diameter. Beaded scaffolds offered the lowest cell adhesion and minimal growth kinetics despite having the lowest average fiber diameter. When uniform fibers were formed and the average fiber was in the nanofiber range (428-1051 nm), cell adhesion and growth kinetics decreased as a function of increasing fiber diameter. Cell adhesion kinetics remained invariant when the average fiber diameter was in the micron range (1,647 nm), whereas cell-growth kinetics were slightly greater than with 900nm scaffolds. We propose that the uniformness of fibers and the average fiber diameter may play an important role in modulating cellular attachment and proliferation in electrospun tissue engineering scaffolds.