Electrospun Chitosan Nanofibers for Hepatocyte Culture

Abstract

In this study, we developed a method to obtain high surface area nanofiber meshes composed of chitosan of a number of molecular weights. This method required decreasing the viscosity and surface tension of the chitosan solution as well as optimization of the electrospinning parameters such as applied voltage and environmental humidity. These chitosan nanofiber meshes were developed as a culture substrate for hepatocytes. The fibers exhibited a uniform diameter distribution (average diameter: 112 nm) and FTIR results indicate that the chemical structure of chitosan is stable during the electrospinning process. The attachment, morphology and activity of hepatocytes cultured on the chitosan nanofiber meshes were tested. The results showed that the chitosan nanofibers are biocompatible with hepatocytes and that these chitosan nanofiber meshes could be useful tissue culture substrates for various applications, including bioartificial liver-assist devices and tissue engineering for liver regeneration.

Nanofibrous Structure of Chitosan for Biomedical Applications

“…Recently, a library of various polymer-solvent combinations which has a crucial role in transforming chitosan into nanofibers has been developed for many ground breaking applications in different disciplines of biomedical technology such as such as in tissue engineering, wound healing, drug delivery, and anti-bacterial applications [33,34,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. These studies as well as steady state growth of number of publications of chitosan based nanofibers in each year (Figure 3) demonstrate enormous potential of chitosan nanofibers in the biomedical field.…”

Biomedical Exploitation of Chitin and Chitosan via Mechano-Chemical Disassembly, Electrospinning, Dissolution in Imidazolium Ionic Liquids, and Supercritical Drying

“…Feng et al [71] developed a method to obtain high surface area nanofiber meshes composed of chitosan of various molecular weights. These chitosan nanofiber meshes were developed as a culture substrate for hepatocytes: they exhibited a uniform diameter distribution (average 112 nm) and stability.…”

New Models for the In Vitro Study of Liver Toxicity: 3D Culture Systems and the Role of Bioreactors

“…The products that are now available (even commercially), are hydro-gels and 3D surfaces, composed of specific constituents of original extra-cellular matrices (extractive or synthetic origin), and solid supports (micro-carriers or scaffolds, also pre-shaped), made up of porous, bio-compatible, organic or synthetic components. Examples of the sophisticated models that, for various purposes, have been obtained from primary hepatocytes, are those generated by using bio-degradable nano-structured substrates (Kim et al, 1998), heat-sensitive polymers (Ohashi et al, 2007), various 3D matrices (Fiegel et al, 2008;ZQ. Feng et al, 2010;Ghaedi et al, 2012), or synthetic self-assembling hydrogels (Wang et al, 2008).…”