Development of Electroactive and Elastic Nanofibers that contain Polyaniline and Poly(L‐lactide‐co‐ε‐caprolactone) for the Control of Cell Adhesion

Abstract

In this work, electrically conductive polyaniline (PAni) doped with camphorsulfonic acid (CPSA) is blended with poly(L‐lactide‐co‐ε‐caprolactone) (PLCL), and then electrospun to prepare uniform nanofibers. The CPSA‐PAni/PLCL nanofibers show a smooth fiber structure without coarse lumps or beads and consistent fiber diameters (which range from 100 to 700 nm) even with an increase in the amount of CPSA‐PAni (from 0 to 30 wt.‐%). However, the elongation at break decreases from 391.54 ± 9.20% to 207.85 ± 6.74% when 30% of CPSA‐PAni is incorporated. Analysis of the surface of the nanofibers demonstrates the presence of homogeneously blended CPSA‐PAni. Most importantly, a four‐point probe analysis reveals that electrical properties are maintained in the nanofibers where the conductivity is significantly increased from 0.0015 to 0.0138 S · cm−1 when the nanofibers are prepared with 30% CPSA‐PAni. The cell adhesion tests using human dermal fibroblasts, NIH‐3T3 fibroblasts, and C2C12 myoblasts demonstrate significantly higher adhesion on the CPSA‐PAni/PLCL nanofibers than pure PLCL nanofibers. In addition, the growth of NIH‐3T3 fibroblasts is enhanced under the stimulation of various direct current flows. The CPSA‐PAni/PLCL nanofibers with electrically conductive properties may potentially be used as a platform substrate to study the effect of electrical signals on cell activities and to direct desirable cell function for tissue engineering applications. magnified image