The Immobilization of VEGF-Fc for Promoting Endothelial Cells Proliferation in Porous PCL Scaffolds

Abstract

In this paper, a novel simple method for VEGF immobilization was developed using a new genetically engineered vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) fused to IgG-Fc (abbreviated as VEGF-Fc). The fusion protein of VEGF-Fc was biosynthesized by eukaryocyte expression system with the cloning plasmid encoding VEGF165 and Fc domain. Owe to the hydrophobic-bind property of the Fc domain, the VEGF-Fc is efficiently immobilized on the surface of porous polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold in our study. The quantitative assay of VEGF-Fc immobilization by ELISA showes that the VEGF-Fc can uniformly distributed throughout the PCL scaffold and the immobilization rate is above 96% that is much higher than that of commercial VEGF. Furthermore, the proliferation of HUVECs was improved two times in the VEGF-Fc immobilized PCL scaffold comparing with that in commercial VEGF in cell culture medium, which detected by the cellular glucose consumption assays.