Influence of conductive polymer doping on the viability of cardiac progenitor cells

Abstract

Cardiac tissue engineering via the use of stem cells is the future for repairing impaired heart function that results from a myocardial infarction. Developing an optimised platform to support the stem cells is vital to realising this, and through utilising new smart materials such as conductive polymers we can provide a multi-pronged approach to supporting and stimulating the stem cells via engineered surface properties, electrical, and electromechanical stimulation. Here we present a fundamental study on the viability of cardiac progenitor cells on conductive polymer surfaces, focusing on the impact of surface properties such as roughness, surface energy, and surface chemistry with variation of the polymer dopant molecules. The conductive polymer materials were shown to provide a viable support for both endothelial and cardiac progenitor cells, while the surface energy and roughness were observed to influence viability for both progenitor cell types. Characterising the interaction between the cardiac progenitor cells and the conductive polymer surface is a critical step towards optimising these materials for cardiac tissue regeneration, and this study will advance the limited knowledge on biomaterial surface interactions with cardiac cells

Tunable conjugated polymers for bacterial differentiation

“…They have been used for bio-sensing [5][6][7], as electrodes for stimulation or recording [8,9], for controlling cell adhesion, proliferation [10][11][12] and stem-cell differentiation [13], for controlled drug release [14,15] and even to mechanically stimulate cells [16]. They can be fabricated electrochemically using various counter ions [17,18] and modified with a variety of biomolecules [5,6,19]. Surface properties of these very well studied polymers can be effectively controlled and reproduced by controlling the polymerisation conditions as well as by using appropriate counter ions.…”

Doping Polypyrrole Films with 4-N-Pentylphenylboronic Acid to Enhance Affinity towards Bacteria and Dopamine

“…The use of dopants, including biomolecules [22, 24] or nano-materials [25, 26], has been shown to be a more advantageous and easier alternative to control the physical and chemical properties (i.e. thickness, roughness, conductivity and hydrophobicity) [14, 27–33] to introduce electrocatalytic properties [3] or to change the chemical properties of the PPy films by providing them with ion exchange ability or electrostatic perm-selectivity [34, 35]. …”

Optimisation of conductive polymer biomaterials for cardiac progenitor cells

“…biological activity of biomolecular dopants) 51 . Here we study in greater detail the effects of synthesis parameters, such as current density, time, and reactant concentrations, have on the polymer properties.…”