Electrospun chitosan-graft-poly (ε-caprolactone)/poly (ε-caprolactone) nanofibrous scaffolds for retinal tissue engineering

Honglin Chen^1,2, Xianqun Fan¹, Jing Xia¹, Ping Chen¹, Xiaojian Zhou¹, Jin Huang², Jiahui Yu², Ping Gu^1
1Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China; ²Institutes for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

Abstract: A promising therapy for retinal diseases is to employ biodegradable scaffolds to deliver retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) for repairing damaged or diseased retinal tissue. In the present study, cationic chitosan-graft-poly(ε-caprolactone)/polycaprolactone (CS-PCL/PCL) hybrid scaffolds were successfully prepared by electrospinning. Characterization of the obtained nanofibrous scaffolds indicated that zeta-potential, fiber diameter, and the content of amino groups on their surface were closely correlated with the amount of CS-PCL in CS-PCL/PCL scaffolds. To assess the cell–scaffold interaction, mice RPCs (mRPCs) were cultured on the electrospun scaffolds for 7 days. In-vitro proliferation assays revealed that mRPCs proliferated faster on the CS-PCL/PCL (20/80) scaffolds than the other electrospun scaffolds. Scanning electron microscopy and the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction results showed that mRPCs grown on CS-PCL/PCL (20/80) scaffolds were more likely to differentiate towards retinal neurons than those on PCL scaffolds. Taken together, these results suggest that CS-PCL/PCL(20/80) scaffolds have potential application in retinal tissue engineering.

Keywords: electrospun, retinal progenitor cells, proliferation, differentiation, tissue engineering