Study On Chitosan Nanofibrous Scaffolds For Human Melanocytes Culture And Transplantation

Vitiligo, which has a worldwide incidence of 0.1-2%, is a common skin diseaseinvolving destruction of functional melanocytes. The lack of functional melanocytescauses vitiligo patients to exhibit pale or white patches on their skin. In addition to theobvious psychological burdens in social setting, vitiligo patients are also moresusceptible to sunburn and skin cancer. Transplantation of cellular patches withmelanocytes seeded on biocompatible scaffolds is a well-proven approach for vitiligo treatment.In this work, a chitosanlPEO nanofibrous scaffold was synthesized byelectrospinning. The effects of polymer concentration, voltage, distance, and flow rateduring the electrospinning process on the scaffold morphology and biocompatibilitywere investigated. Nanofibrous scaffolds with a thickness of 180μm and fiberdiameters of 250-500nm were prepared. The morphology of these nanofibrousscaffolds was well preserved even after neutralization with Na2CO3 and soaking in water.Melanocytes were successfully cultured on these chitosan/PEO nanofibrousscaffolds. The activity and aging of melanocytes were improved by culturing themelanocytes on the nanofibrous scaffolds compared with culturing on traditionaldense membranes. This improvement can be attributed to the high specific surfacearea and porosity of these nanofibrous scaffolds, which allow them to mimicextracellular matrices and to accelerate the renewal of culture media and metabolites.Nanofibrous scaffolds with various ratios of PEO to chitosan were also prepared andinvestigated. It was observed that this ratio had negligible influence on the activity ofmelanocytes, but exhibited a slight improvement on the biocompatibility ofnanofibrous scaffolds by using more PEO.This work prepares a novel electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds, which possess abetter biocompatibility with melanocytes than the traditional dense membranes. Theexperiment data suggest that nanofibrous scaffolds not only improve the proliferation,activity, and aging of melanocytes, but are also applicable to melanocytes adhesion,cultivation, and transplantation. These biocompatible nanofibrous scaffoldsdemonstrate a great potential to be used for the treatment of vitiligo.