Physicochemical and biological investigation of oxygen plasma modified electrospun polyurethane scaffolds for connective tissue engineering application

Abstract

Abstract In this study, electrospinning was selected to fabricate randomly oriented polyurethane (PU) nanofibers for tissue engineering application, and the surface of scaffolds was exposed to oxygen plasma flow. The morphology structure of the PU scaffolds before and after oxygen plasma treatment was observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs, and the fiber diameter distribution was measured using Image J software. The results demonstrated that oxygen plasma modification reduces the fiber diameter without any other special effects on fiber microstructure. Water drop contact angle and swelling ratio of PU constructs were performed to estimate the water-scaffolds interactions. The results revealed improvement of hydrophilicity by oxygen plasma treatment. Atomic force microscopy test was done to analyze a topological characteristic of the scaffolds, and it was found out that oxygen plasma treatment decreases the roughness of the scaffolds. The biological behavior of the scaffolds was investigated by SEM observation and MTT assay after L-929 fibroblast cells culture. In vitro assays demonstrated biocompatibility, cellular attachments, and filopodia formation on plasma modified samples. These results suggest that oxygen plasma treatment improves the physicochemical and biological properties of PU scaffolds to create a more hydrophilic surface which facilitates cell attachments and proliferation.