Nanoceria Can Act as the Cues for Angiogenesis in Tissue Engineering Scaffolds: Toward Next-Generation in Situ Tissue Engineering

Next-generation tissue engineering exploits the body's own regenerative capacity by providing an optimal niche via a scaffold for the migration and subsequent proliferation of endogenous cells to the site of injury, enhancing regeneration and healing and bypassing laborious in vitro cell-culturing procedures. Such systems are also required to have a sufficient angiogenic capacity for the subsequent patency of implanted scaffolds. The exploitation of redox properties of nanodimensional ceria (nCeO(2)) in in situ tissue engineering to promote cell adhesion and angiogenesis is poorly investigated. As a novel strategy, electrospun polycaprolactone based tissue-engineering scaffolds loaded with nCeO(2) were developed and evaluated for morphological and physicomechanical features. In addition, in vitro and in vivo studies were performed to show the ability of nCeO(2)-containing scaffolds to enhance cell adhesion and angiogenesis. These studies confirmed that nCeO(2)-containing scaffolds supported cell adhesion and angiogenesis better than bare scaffolds. Gene-expression studies had shown that angiogenesis-related factors such as HIF1 alpha and VEGF were up-regulated. Overall results show that incorporation of nCeO(2) plays a key role in scaffolds for the enhancement of angiogenesis, cell adhesion, and cell proliferation and can produce a successful outcome in in situ tissue engineering.