Fabrication Of Scaffolds For Neural Tissue Engineering And Test Of Performances In Vitro

At present, there is insufficient ideal in three-dimensional (3-D) scaffolds to culture neural stem cells (NSCs) in vitro, for example, the rate of cell adherency is not high, the distribution of cells is not even, and the multiplication of cells is not big. To obtain good 3-D scaffolds, being suitable for the NSCs to growth and maintaining potention of differentiation.Therefore, this article introduces new 3-D scaffolds C-G-Ha-HS scaffolds, putting NSCs to the scaffolds and studying the growth, multiplication, metabolism as well as differentiation of NSCs in the new scaffolds.New chitosan-gelatin-hyaluronate-heparin sulfate (C-G-Ha-HS) hybrid 3-D porous scaffolds were fabricated by lyophilization and then the pore size, porosity, water absorption and degradation of the scaffolds were determined. Meanwhile, cell adhesion behavior and the status of NSCs in the scaffolds as well as the biocompatibility of the scaffolds were detected by inoculating of NSCs onto the scaffolds, compared with chitosan-gelatin(C-G) scaffolds.The results show that pore size mainly ranges from 90μm to 130μm; porosity and water absorption are above 95% and the scaffolds can be degradated. Compared with C-G scaffolds, the adhesion rate and the multiple of proliferation of C-G-Ha-HS scaffolds are twice and 1.4 times respectively. Furthermore, NSCs distribute evenly, and they can proliferate into network through holes;the metabolism kept a certain relationship with the growth of NSCs, as well as, the NSCs will grow to neurospheres,what's more, they can differentiate into neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.Taken together, C-G-Ha-HS scaffolds are suitable for NSCs to distribute, adhere, grow, metabolism and keep differentiation. Therefore, C-G-Ha-HS scaffolds are suitable material to construct three-dimensional environment for NSCs in vitro, and can be used for tissue engineering as well as drug screening.