Nanofibrous Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Applications

The discipline of tissue engineering opens up the ways for repair and regenerate damaged organs and tissues. In the current work biomimetic nanofibrous scaffolds were fabricated by electrospinning. Poly-L-lactic acid ( PLLA) was blended with collagen and gelatin to fabricate PLLLA-collagen and PLLA-gelatin fibrous scaffolds respectively. Pure PLLA and gelatin scaffolds served as controls. All the scaffolds displayed randomly oriented smooth fibers studied by SEM. Surface topography and roughness were studied by AFM and surface contact angle was also measured for all the fabricated scaffolds. Surface roughness was found to be higher in collagen and gelatin blended scaffolds in comparison to PLLA scaffold. Blending of collagen and gelatin reduced the surface hydrophobicity of the scaffolds. Human osteosarcoma cell lines MG-63 were cultured on all scaffolds up to 7 days and cell adhesion was studied through SEM and confocal microscopy. SEM and confocal results showed that gelatin blended PLLA scaffold showed better cell attachment and cell spreading.