Fabrication of aligned, porous and conductive fibers and their effects on cell adhesion and guidance

The potential applications of aligned, conductive electrospun fibers have been widely studied in anisotropic tissue regeneration. In this study, aligned porous poly L-lactic acid fibers were obtained with electrospinning, then polypyrrole nanoparticles (PPy NPs) were coated onto the porous fibers with oxidation polymerization to prepare electrically conductive fibers with about 1.24 mu m of diameter, and their surface conductivity was about 50 mS. The results of L929 cell test showed that more than 55% of cells grew along the aligned porous fiber axis, confirming that the cell guidance of aligned porous fibers was better than that of non-porous fibers. The results of differentiated PC12 cells on porous fibers showed that the alignment degree of neurite outgrowth and average neurite length of the cells were 84% and 111 mu m, respectively, which were larger than those on the non-porous fibers. A primary mechanism was proposed to explain effect of these pores on cell/neurite adhesion and orientation along the aligned porous fibers. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.