Enhanced cell affinity of the silk fibroin- modified PHBHHx material

Cell affinity is one of the important issues required for developing tissue engineering materials. Although the poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) (PHBHHx) has been attractive for its controllable mechanical properties recent years, its cell affinity is still necessary to be improved for the requirements. For this purpose, the regenerated silk fibroin (SF) was coated on the PHBHHx films and its porous scaffolds. The mechanical test showed that SF-modified PHBHHx (SF/PHBHHx) film has a maximum tensile strength of 11.5 ± 0.5 MPa and elongation at break of 175 ± 5%. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy demonstrated that SF firmly attached on the scaffold by the hydrogen bonding interaction between SF and PHBHHx even flushed for 21 days in the phosphate-buffer saline (PBS) solution (pH = 7.4). In order to characterize the cell affinity of the SF-modified material, endothelial-like cell line ECV304 cells were seeded on the SF/PHBHHx films and its porous scaffolds. The histochemical analyses of cells stained by the hematoxylin and eosin (HE) as well as cell nuclei stained by the 4′,6-diamindine-2′-phenylindole (DAPI) demonstrated that cell attached and reached nearly 100% confluence on the SF/PHBHHx films when cultured for 4 days, which was much faster than that on the pure PHBHHx film. Moreover, the assay of cell activity by the 3-(4, 5-dimethyl thiazol -2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl terazolium bromide (MTT) showed quantitatively that the number of cells on the SF/PHBHHx porous scaffolds was significant more than that on the unmodified ones after 4, 8, and 14 days culture, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the similar results. Therefore, the SF-modified PHBHHx material is maybe a potential material applicable in the cardiovascular tissue engineering.