Plasma Functionalization of Polycaprolactone Nanofibers Changes Protein Interactions with Cells, Resulting in Increased Cell Viability

Abstract

The surface properties of electrospun scaffolds can greatly influence protein adsorption and thus strongly dictate cell-material interactions. In this study, we aim to investigate possible correlations between the surface properties of argon, nitrogen and ammonia/helium plasma-functionalized polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers (NFs) and their cellular interactions by examining the protein corona patterns of the plasma-treated NFs as well as the cell membrane proteins involved in cell proliferation. As a result of the performed plasma treatments, PCL NFs morphology was preserved while wettability was improved profoundly after all treatments because of the incorporation of polar surface groups. Depending on the discharge gas, different types of groups are incorporated which influenced the resultant cell-material interactions. Argon plasma-functionalized PCL NFs, only enriched by oxygen-containing functional groups, were found to show the best cell-material interactions, followed by N2 and He/NH3 plasma-treated samples. SDS-PAGE and LC-MS clearly indicated an increased protein retention compared to non-treated PCL NFs. The nine proteins best retained on plasma-treated NF are important mediators of extracellular matrix interaction, illustrating the importance thereof for cell proliferation and viability of cells. Finally, 92 proteins that can be used to differentiate the different plasma treatments are clustered and subjected to a gene ontology study, illustrating the importance of keratinization and extracellular matrix organization.

Fabrication and Plasma Surface Activation of Aligned Electrospun PLGA Fiber Fleeces with Improved Adhesion and Infiltration of Amniotic Epithelial Stem Cells Maintaining their Teno-inductive Potential

“…Different working gases such as air, oxygen (O 2 ), nitrogen (N 2 ), ammonium (NH 3 ), argon (Ar), or helium (He) have been used for this purpose [29,[43][44][45][46][47][48]. Most of studies concerning plasma activation of electrospun scaffolds have focused on PCL [29,46,47,[49][50][51] and PLLA [52][53][54][55][56][57][58] while those concerning PLGA [48,[59][60][61][62] are few and still neglected in the literature although its wide application range in the field of tissue engineering [63]. Despite the known cytocompatibility of PLGA [10,11,13,25,64], its poor hydrophilic properties and the rather low ability to interact with cells restrict the natural cell recognition sites on its surface, which may lead to poor overall cell adhesion [65].…”

Well-Blended PCL/PEO Electrospun Nanofibers with Functional Properties Enhanced by Plasma Processing

“…Therefore, its modification either by controlling surface potential [ 28 ], or with hydrophilic synthetic and biopolymers opens new horizons for bioapplications [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. The modifications can be performed either by grafting hydrophilic moieties onto PCL [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ] or by the use of amphiphilic blends, e.g., with gelatin or poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ].…”

Fabrication and Plasma Modification of Nanofibrous Tissue Engineering Scaffolds

“…A schematic representation of (A) a polymer solution reproduced with permission from[106]. American chemical society, 2018 and (B) polymer melt electrospinning system-reproduced with permission from[107].…”

“…SEM images of the poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) (A) Random nanofibers; collector speed: 300 rpm-Reproduced with permission from[106]. American Chemical society, 2018 and (B) aligned nanofibers; collector speed: 3000 rpm (for both images: concentration = 14%, mixture of formic and acetic acid (9:1), voltage: 32-33 kV)-reproduced with permission from[119].…”

“…Fluorescent images one day (top) and seven days (bottom) post-seeding of human foreskin fibroblasts (HFF) cells after culturing on untreated and Ar plasma-modified PCL nanofibrous meshes-reproduced with permission from[106]. Copyright American Chemical Society, 2018.…”