Electrically Conductive Nanofibers Composed of Chitosan-grafted Polythiophene and Poly(epsilon-caprolactone) as Tissue Engineering Scaffold

Two novel electrically conductive nanofibrous scaffolds based on chitosan-grafted polythiophene (CS-g-PTh), and chitosan-grafted polythiophene/poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (CS-g-PTh/PCL) have been fabricated through electrospinning technique, and their performances in tissue engineering (TE) application were preliminary investigated in terms of biological (biocompatibility, biodegradability, and enhancing the cells adhesion and proliferation) as well as physicochemical (composition, electroactivity, conductivity, hydrophilicity, and morphology) features. The conductivities of the CS-g-PTh and CS-g-PTh/PCL nanofibrous scaffolds were determined as 0.09 and 8x10(-3) Scm(-1), respectively. The developed CS-g-PTh/PCL scaffold exhibited slightly higher cells proliferation (8.24 +/- 0.49) than those of the CS-g-PTh scaffold (7.1 +/- 0.38) in time period of 7 days. The biodegradability tests using gravimetric approach revealed that the mass loss of CS-g-PTh and CS-g-PTh/PCL electrospun nanofibers were about 28.1 and 37.3 wt.%, respectively, at the end of experiments (sixth weeks). It was found that the electrospinning of CS-g-PTh with PCL improves the nanofibers uniformity as well as the biological features (e.g., biocompatibility and cell proliferation) of the resultant scaffold.

Automated summary

Two novel electrically conductive nanofibrous scaffolds based on chitosan-grafted polythiophene (CS-g-PTh) and chitosan-grafted polythiophene/poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (CS-g-PTh/PCL) were fabricated using electrospinning technique, showing good biological compatibility, conductivity, and cell proliferation. The CS-g-PTh/PCL scaffold exhibited slightly higher cell proliferation than the CS-g-PTh scaffold within 7 days.