Study of the effects of electrospun poly(epslon-caprolactone)/gelatin matrices on human mesenchymal stem cell culture

ECM tridimensionality can be mimicked through the fabrication of nanofibrous scaffolds that can be used as a preliminary platform in skeletal muscle regeneration. This work aims at mimic the ECM structure through a comparative study between polycaprolactone (PCL), gelatin, PCL/gelatin and PCL/collagen electrospun nanofiber scaffolds for MSCs culture. The influence of different fiber alignments, diameters and scaffolds gelatin content on BM MSCs morphology and proliferation was investigated. AT and UCM MSCs morphology and proliferation were also assessed on nanofibrous scaffolds. In this study, the use of aligned scaffolds showed a significant effect on MSCs cells shape while gelatin presence in the scaffold resulted in a higher proliferation rate than in PCL (alone) scaffolds. PCL/gelatin and PCL/collagen scaffolds have demonstrate similar cellular proliferation which points out for possible collagen denaturation during polymer dissolution and electrospun. Moreover, MSCs showed to maintain their multilineage differentiation potential after culturing on the studied scaffolds.