Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Chew, Sing Yian
• Mi, Ruifa
• Hoke, Ahmet
• Leong, Kam W

Titel

The effect of the alignment of electrospun fibrous scaffolds on Schwann cell maturation

Ist Teil von

• Biomaterials, 2008-02, Vol.29 (6), p.653-661

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Abstract Peripheral nerve regeneration can be enhanced by the stimulation of formation of bands of Büngner prior to implantation. Aligned electrospun poly( ε -caprolactone) (PCL) fibers were fabricated to test their potential to provide contact guidance to human Schwann cells. After 7 days of culture, cell cytoskeleton and nuclei were observed to align and elongate along the fiber axes, emulating the structure of bands of Büngner. Microarray analysis revealed a general down-regulation in expression of neurotrophin and neurotrophic receptors in aligned cells as compared to cells seeded on two-dimensional PCL film. Real-time-PCR analyses confirmed the up-regulation of early myelination marker, myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG), and the down-regulation of NCAM-1, a marker of immature Schwann cells. Similar gene expression changes were also observed on cells cultured on randomly oriented PCL electrospun fibers. However, up-regulation of the myelin-specific gene, P0, was observed only on aligned electrospun fibers, suggesting the propensity of aligned fibers in promoting Schwann cell maturation.