Construction of PCL/SF-based electrospun nanofibers for skin tissue engineering applications

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b3205833

Skin substitutes hold great potential for the treatment of high-degree burns and chronic wounds. Current solutions, including Integra Dermal Template, provide fast and practical treatments for skin defects. However, existing templates cannot provide a solution for the recreation of the native tissue functionality and scarless healing of the wounded site. This study examines the construction and characterization of novel skin substitutes based on PCL/SF blends.According to the morphological analysis, each sample had a homogenous fiber distribution without any beads. It was shown that the thermal stability of nanofibers improved with the incorporation of SF into the PCL structure. Mechanical analysis proved that the addition of SF into PCL enhanced tensile strength by providing intermolecular interactions due to SF functional groups. In addition, Young’s modulus of the samples improved with the addition of some SF since it increases the stiffness and the structural integrity of the fiber structure. Water contact analysis demonstrated that all samples obtained adequate hydrophilicity, other than PCL, which is important to maintain cell functionality. Lastly, cell proliferation and viability assays were performed by seeding the scaffolds with primary human keratinocytes. It was observed that using blends of PCL/SF led to better cell proliferation and viability compared to pure PCL and SF scaffolds