The effect of electrospun polycaprolactone scaffold morphology on human kidney epithelial cells

Abstract

There is a pressing need for further advancement in tissue engineering of functional organs with a view to providing a more clinically relevant model for drug development and reduce the dependence on organ donation. Polymer based scaffolds, such as polycaprolactone (PCL), have been highlighted as a potential avenue for tissue engineered kidneys, but there is little investigation down this stream.Focus within kidney tissue engineering has been on 2-dimensional cell culture and decellularised tissue. Electrospun polymer scaffolds can be created with a variety of fibre diameters and have shown a great potential in many areas. The variation in morphology of tissue engineering scaffold has been shown to effect the way cells behave and integrate. In this study we examined the cellular response to scaffold architecture of novel electrospun scaffold for kidney tissue engineering. Fibre diameters of 1.10±0.16 µm and 4.49±0.47 µm were used with 3 distinct scaffold architectures. Traditional random fibres were spun onto a mandrel rotating at 250 rpm, aligned at 1800 rpm with novel cryogenic fibres spun onto a mandrel loaded with dry ice rotating at 250 rpm. Human kidney epithelial cells were grown for 1 and 2 weeks. Fibre morphology had no effect of cell viability in scaffolds with a large fibre diameter but significant differences were seen in smaller fibres. Fibre diameter had a significant effect in aligned and cryogenic scaffold. Imaging detailed the differences in cell attachment due to scaffold differences. These results show that architecture of the scaffold has a profound effect on kidney cells; whether that is effects of fibre diameter on the cell attachment and viability or the effect of fibre arrangement on the distribution of cells and their alignment with fibres. Results demonstrate that PCL scaffolds have the capability to maintain kidney cells life and should be investigated further as a potential scaffold in kidney tissue engineering.

A Non-woven Path: Electrospun Poly(lactic acid) Scaffolds for Kidney Tissue Engineering

“…4. Although, our results regarding fibre diameter and its influence on cell behaviour are not conclusive, it has been shown to have major implication in previous studies [39,[56][57][58]. There is some disparity between our data for CellTitre blue and DNA quantification, this is possibly as a result of the much greater porosity gained from cryogenic electrospinning where unattached cells become trapped within the scaffold.…”

“…Our work follows on from the limited published research into the use of kidney cells with electrospun scaffolds [13,30,55]. We have previously shown that electrospun PCL can be used to grow a kidney cells line, and highlighted the effects of morphological differences in scaffolds [39]. Here we have gone further, using RPK cells and demonstrating the survival of key cell types of this multi-cell population, Fig.…”

“…We have previously shown the ability of electrospun scaffolds to support a kidney cell line [39]. Here, for the first time to the authors knowledge, we study the growth of a multipopulation of rat primary kidney cells on poly(lactic acid) scaffolds of differing morphologies.…”

Hybrid cardiovascular sourced extracellular matrix scaffolds as possible platforms for vascular tissue engineering

“…PCL/ECM scaffolds were electrospun using the following parameters: 0.4 mm needle bore, 0.8 mL/hr volume flow rate (6 mL in total), 12 cm mandrel: needle distance, +14 kV positive charge, −4 kV negative charge, and 250 revolutions per minute mandrel rotational speed. These parameters have been shown to create uniform randomly aligned small fibers of PCL (Burton et al, ). The mandrel was coated with aluminum foil for collection.…”

“…Materials used in vascular tissue engineering include decellularized extracellular matrices, biopolymers, bioabsorbable polymers, and collagen (Gilbert, Sellaro, & Badylak, ; Hong et al, ; Hutmacher, ; Jiang et al, ; Lu, Lin, Kim, et al, ; Masoumi et al, ; Reid & Callanan, ; Wu, Liu, Cui, Qu, & Chen, ). Electrospinning is a widely used technique that mimics the nanoscale and microscale structure of tissues and has been utilized in a large number of tissue engineering avenues for various organs (Burton & Callanan, ; Burton, Corcoran, & Callanan, ; Dettin et al, ; Gao et al, ; Garrigues, Little, Sanches‐Adams, et al, ; Grant, Hay, & Callanan, ; Han, Gerstenhaber, Lazarovici, & Lelkes, ; Hong et al, ; Kumbar, Nukavarapu, James, Nair, & Laurencin, ; Masoumi et al, ; Sundaramurthi, Krishnan, & Sethuraman, ). Furthermore, while polymers can control architecture, they lack some of the unique biomolecular cues found in native tissue, which is why, in recent years, there has been an increase in demand for decellularized ECM (Kasimir et al, ; Sanchez, Fernandez‐Santos, Costanza, et al, ; Tapias & Ott, ; Weymann, Patil, Sabashnikov, et al, ).…”