Single-channel and multi-channel electrospinning for the fabrication of PLA/PCL tissue engineering scaffolds: comparative study of the materials physicochemical and biological properties

Abstract

Fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds with tailored physicochemical and biological characteristics is a relevant task in biomedical engineering. The present work was focused at the evaluation of the effect of fabrication approach (single-channel or multi-channel electrospinning) on the properties of the fabricated poly(lactic acid)(PLA)/poly(epsilon-caprolactone)(PCL) scaffolds with various polymer mass ratios (1/0, 2/1, 1/1, 1/2, and 0/1). The scaffolds with same morphology (regardless of electrospinning variant) were fabricated and characterized using SEM, water contact angle measurement, FTIR, XRD, tensile testing and in vitro experiment with multipotent mesenchymal stem cells. It was demonstrated, that multi-channel electrospinning prevents intermolecular interactions between the polymer components of the scaffold, preserving their crystal structure, what affects the mechanical characteristics of the scaffold (particularly, leads to 2-fold difference in elongation). Better adhesion of multipotent mesenchymal stem cells on the surface of the scaffolds fabricated using multichannel electrospinning was demonstrated.