Fabrication And Biological Evaluation Of Gelatin-HA Blend Nanofibrous Tissue Engineering Scaffords

Electrospinning is one of the effective methods to produce nanofibers with diameter ranging from several nanometers to hundreds of nanometers. Recently, electrospinning of biopolymers attracts more attentions owing to their good biocompatibility. The electrospun nanofibers have many potential applications in tissue engineering.Gelatin (GE)-Hyaluronic Acid (HA) blends were dissolved in TFE/water solvent with the volume ratio of TFE to water at 1:1 and were electrospun into fibrous membranes successfully. In this study, SEM, FTIR, XRD, TG, DSC, contact angle, and mechanical properties were used to characterize the nanofibrous mats. The average nanofibers diameter increased by increasing solution concentration and the contents of HA. The water contact angles of GE-HA decreased whereas the tensile strength and failure elongation increased by increasing the contents of HA. EDC was selected to crosslink the GE-HA fiber membrane to enhance the water resisting property and stability. The average nanofibers diameter increased after crosslinking. Water contact angles of GE-HA decreased after crosslinking, and also decreased while increasing the contents of HA. The average tensile strength increased while failure elongation decreased after crosslinking.Fibroblasts and PlECs were seeded onto nanofiber mats for adherence and proliferation studies. The cells had a good adherence on nanofibrous mats with GE-HA at different ratios, and the amount of the cells' proliferation was more than that of control group on the first day after seeding. The picture of H-E staining and SEM images showed that cells maintained good shape on nanofibrous mats. These results demonstrated that crosslinked GE-HA nanofibrous scaffolds showed no cytotoxicity toward cell growth with good biocompatibility in vitro.The GE-HA nanofibrous mats were implanted into the SD rats for wound dressing. The surface morphology of experimental group and control group was quite similar. The results of H-E staining found that many new capillary vessels appeared after being implanted for 1 week. The healing of wound which had been implanted with nanofibrous membrane was faster than that of control group. The results showed that GE-HA blend nanofibers have shown valuable potential application as biomaterials for tissue engineering scaffolds.