Fibroblast cell responses to physical cues of the triangular prism micropattern and aligned nanofibrous scaffold for promoting wound closure

Abstract

Cells are sensitive to the microenvironment and multiscale surface topographies were crucial for modulating cell activities and promoting the wound healing process. Herein, we fabricated an engineered microstructural topography surface on the nanofibre scaffold as mimicking a cellular microenvironment. The scaffold consisted of nanofibre matrices arranged in a triangular prism micropattern with either aligned or random nanofibres. The morphological analysis revealed that the scaffolds had a compact layer of nanofibres, and the peak of the triangular prism was present after separation. The in-vitro analysis presents that the human dermal fibroblast cells (HDF) are distributed homogenously and aligned along the structural scaffold. The triangular prism micropattern supported cell movement, resulting in improved cell elongation behavior. In in-vivo analysis, the aligned microstructural scaffold demonstrated a better therapeutic effect and advanced epithelialization on day 7. The length of the epidermis tongue of the aligned and random microstructural scaffold was 1983 ± 132.94 µm and 1638.04 ± 115.85 µm, respectively. By day 14, the aligned microstructural scaffold had enhanced the wound healing process by decreasing the wound area and had achieved a 97% wound closure. This indicated that the aligned microstructural scaffold was able to guide the cell movement required for wound healing application.