Surface-modofied electrospun polycaprolactone fibrous membranes modified with gelatin, bovine serum albumin or crude bone protein extract and their potential for use as bone scaffolds

Abstract

Immobilization of biomolecules; i.e gelatin type-A, gelatin type-B, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and crude bone protein (CBP), making polycaprolactone (PCL) fibrous scaffolds that have been fabricated by electrospinning more suitable for bone tissue engineering. PCL scaffolds were first covalently introduced with amino groups on their surfaces through the aminolysis reaction using 1, 6 -hexamethylenediamine (HMD) and later immobilized with the above mentioned biomolecules using disuccinimidyl carbonate (DSC) as the coupling agent. Various techniques; ATR-FTIR, XPS, SEM, and water contact angle measurement were used to monitor the scaffold surfaces after each modification step. The potential use of the modified materials as bone scaffolds was evaluated with a murine pre-osteoblastic cell line (MC3T3-E1). MC3T3-E1 proliferation was improved remarkably on the modified surface, especially the BSA-immobilized PCL fibrous scaffolds which showed the greatest proliferation after cell culture as well as the highest ALP activity. In mineralization, the deposited minerals was highest on the CBP-immobilized PCL scaffolds. All the received results suggested that immobilization of BSA and CBP is an attractive method for fabricating of fibrous scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.