Abstract
Tissue Engineering is a new emerging field that offers many possibilities to produce three-dimensional and functional tissues like ligaments or scaffolds. The biocompatibility of these materials is crucial in tissue engineering, since they should be integrated in situ and should induce a good cell adhesion and proliferation. One of the most promising materials used for tissue engineering are polyesters such as Poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL), which is used in this work. In our case, the bio-integration is reached by grafting a bioactive polymer (pNaSS) on a PCL surface. Using nonlinear microscopy, PCL structure is visualized by SHG and proteins and cells by two-photon excitation autofluorescence generation. A comparative study between grafted and nongrafted polymer films is provided. We demonstrate that the polymer grafting improves the protein adsorption by a factor of 75% and increase the cell spreading onto the polymer surface. Since the spreading is directly related to cell adhesion and proliferation, we demonstrate that the pNaSS grafting promotes PCL biocompatibility.
Highlights
Polyesters are widely used in tissue engineering because of their flexibility, elasticity and mechanical strength and resistance at break and friction [1]
Grafted and non grafted PCL films are characterized by nonlinear microscopy
The film surface grafting with pNaSS polymer makes the films hydrophilic, increases protein adsorption which induce more cell adhesion and promote films biocompatibility
Summary
Polyesters are widely used in tissue engineering because of their flexibility, elasticity and mechanical strength and resistance at break and friction [1] Most of these polyesters suffer from their low surface energy leading to a hydrophobic surface which decreases their biocompatibility. To overcome this drawback, a surface modification of these polyesters is often needed to make them hydrophilic which improves their biocompatibility, promoting cell adhesion, growth and proliferation and to make them suitable for implants or scaffolds [2,3,4]. One of the main solutions to make PCL more biocompatible is to modify its surface by grafting another polymer more suitable for biological media [8]. A synthetic polymer such as poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) (pNaSS) is grafted onto the surface of the polyesters [2, 3]
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