Watercress-based electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds enhance proliferation and stemness preservation of human adipose-derived stem cells

The present study describes the effects of Watercress extract (WE) based electrospun nanofibrous mats on the regulation of adhesion, proliferation, cytoprotection and stemness preservation of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs). Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) is one of the most important medicinal plant with a board spectrum of biological functions. For this purpose, WE-loaded PCL-PEG nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning and characterized using FE-SEM and FTIR. Adhesion, proliferation and cytoprotection of ADSCs on the nanofibers was investigated using FE-SEM and MTT assays. Analysis of cell cycle was carried out by flow-cytometry. Finally, qPCR was applied to measure the expression levels of cell cycle-regulated genes and stemness markers of ADSCs grown on the nanofibers. In this study, we found that WE-loaded PCL-PEG nanofibers had great antioxidant potential and exhibited higher cytoprotection, better adhesion, and significantly increased proliferation of ADSCs. The greater proliferation and preserving stemness ability of ADSCs on WE based nanofibers was further confirmed by higher expression levels of cell cycle-regulated genes and stemness markers. These results demonstrate that WE-loaded PCL-PEG electrospun nanofibrous mats appear suitable to support ADSCs adhesion and proliferation while concurrently preserving the cell stemness, therefore representing a hopeful approach for applying in stem cell based regenerative medicine.