Fabrication and Properties of a Hybrid Biocompatible Nanofiber Mesh Constituted of Polycaprolactone and Self-Assembly Peptide

Abstract

Conventional therapeutic methods for organ and tissue deficiencies include surgical reconstruction, organ transplantation, medical devices treatment, synthetic prosthesis and so on, of which the application is limited when donors exhibit a low availability and impaired organs and tissues cannot well perform their functions. Tissue Engineering (TE) can harmonize with regional organs or tissues, ensure optimal degradation time for novel structure rebirth, facilitate cell adhesiveness, contribute to cell procreation and differentiation in tissue scaffolds, etc., making it an alternative option for treating pathological obstacles. Artificial polymers such as polycaprolactone (PCL) and nature materials such as peptides are adopted for the fabrication of nanofiber scaffolds. The study first engineered porous PCL scaffolds for examining the fiber morphology and the diameter alternations considering the change of single variable condition of the solution concentration, voltage and electrode distance, etc., thereby finding the basic conditions for producing nanofiber scaffolds with good formation. With the increase in solution concentration, the more obvious molecule entanglement can limit the jet stretching, thereby enlarging the fiber diameters. Voltage negatively impacts the fiber diameters, and elevated voltage can strengthen the electric intensity, thereby leading to a complete stretching of cone jets and making fiber diameters thinner. Besides, increased electrode distance is followed by expanded flight distance and decreased electrode intensity (constant voltage), as a result, fibers become narrower. Nanofiber substance exhibits the optimal performance under the condition of solution concentration: 6%, voltage: 50kV, and electrode distance: 150mm. Subsequently, nanofiber scaffolds were fabricated based on the respective preparation of PCL/P11-4 and PCL/P11-8 polymer solutions. Both P11-4 and P11-8 presented uneven distribution in PCL scaffolds, which involved various PCL nanofiber substances with abundant peptides. PCL nanofiber scaffolds saw the breakage of P11-4 and P11-8 fibers.