Membrane supported poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) nanofibrous matrices as cardiac patch: Effect of basement membrane for the fiber deposition and cellular behavior

Abstract

Electrospun nanofibrous matrices are convenient biomaterials that mimic extracellular matrices for adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation of cells. The aim of this study is to optimize the electrospinning parameters for poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) nanofiber production by the response surface methodology (RSM) and to develop a suitable material design for the usability of PBAT in cardiac tissue engineering. Therefore, electrospun PBAT nanofibrous matrices collected on solvent-casted polycaprolactone (PCL) or PBAT basement membranes at optimized conditions. The attachment and proliferation behavior of the H9C2 rat cardiomyoblasts investigated on different PBAT and PCL surface features as a model cell line. For this purpose, neat PBAT and PCL films have been used comparatively with both random (R-PBAT) and aligned PBAT (A-PBAT) nanofibers coated films. The effect of polymer concentration, flow rate, applied voltage, and needle tip-connector distance on fiber diameter and alignment was examined in the electrospinning process and optimum processing parameters were determined by RSM. The PBAT nanofibers were spun on basement membranes with 10% (w/v) polymer concentration, 1 mL/h volumetric flow rate, 2000 rpm collector rotation velocity (for aligned ones), 15 kV applied voltage, and 20 cm needle tip-collector distance. The average diameter of random (R-PBAT) and aligned (A-PBAT) nanofibers was calculated as 555 ± 126 nm and 417 ± 137 nm. The mechanical test results showed that the alignment topography increased the elastic modulus of PBAT nanofibers compared to random matrices. The alignment of fibers found as 91% and 75% within the ± 10° range for A-PBAT/SC-PBAT and A-PBAT/SC-PCL, respectively. These findings showed that usage of PCL, instead of PBAT, as basement membrane decrease the alignment of deposited nanofibers. A 7-day cell culture study conducted with H9C2 cells seeded samples to investigate the influence of these differences on cell behavior. The results indicated that the alignment of fibers provides a suitable topography to proliferate and spread in myocyte morphology for H9C2 cells especially compared to neat films. Cellular behavior and nanofiber deposition have been affected by the usage of various basement membrane polymers. These findings demonstrated that the usage of basement membrane as support material provides the required thickness and mechanical properties to the aligned PBAT nanofiber matrices, and this double layer structure might be a promising candidate for cardiac tissue engineering with further studies.