Highly aligned nanocomposite scaffolds by electrospinning and electrospraying for neural tissue regeneration

Neural tissue engineering offers a promising avenue for repairing neural injuries. Advancement in nanotechnology and neural scaffold manufacturing strategies has shed light on this field into a new era. In this study, a novel tissue engineered scaffold, which possesses highly aligned poly-ε-caprolactonemicrofibrous framework and adjustable bioactive factorembedded poly (d, l-lactide-co-glycolide) core-shellnanospheres, was fabricated by combining electrospinning and electrospraying techniques. The fabricated nanocomposite scaffold has cell favorable nanostructured feature and improved hydrophilic surface property. More importantly, by incorporating core-shell nanospheres into microfibrous scaffold, a sustained bioactive factor release was achieved. Results show rat pheochromocytoma (PC-12) cell proliferation was significantly promoted on the nanocomposite scaffold. In addition, confocal microscope imagesillustrated that the highly aligned scaffold increased length of neurites and directed neurites extension along the fibers in both PC-12 and astrocyte cell lines, which indicates that the scaffold is promising for guiding neural tissue growth and regeneration.