Long-term viability of coronary artery smooth muscle cells on poly(L-lactide-co-epsilon-caprolactone) nanofibrous scaffold indicates its potential for blood vessel tissue engineering.

Biodegradable polymer nanofibres have been extensively studied as cell culture scaffolds in tissue engineering. However, long-term in vitro studies of cell-nanofibre interactions were rarely reported and successful organ regeneration using tissue engineering techniques may take months (e.g. blood vessel tissue engineering). Understanding the long-term interaction between cells and nanofibrous scaffolds (NFS) is crucial in material selection, design and processing of the tissue engineering scaffolds. In this study, poly(L-lactide-co-epsilon-caprolactone) [P(LLA-CL)] (70:30) copolymer NFS were produced by electrospinning. Porcine coronary artery smooth muscle cells (PCASMCs) were seeded and cultured on the scaffold to evaluate cell-nanofibre interactions for up to 105 days. A favourable interaction between this scaffold and PCASMCs was demonstrated by cell viability assay, scanning electron microscopy, histological staining and extracellular matrix (ECM) secretion. Degradation behaviours of the scaffolds with or without PCASMC culture were determined by mechanical testing and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The results showed that the PCASMCs attached and proliferated well on the P(LLA-CL) NFS. Large amount of ECM protein secretion was observed after 50 days of culture. Multilayers of aligned oriented PCASMCs were formed on the scaffold after two months of in vitro culture. In the degradation study, the PCASMCs were not shown to significantly increase the degradation rate of the scaffolds for up to 105 days of culture. The in vitro degradation time of the scaffold could be as long as eight months by extrapolating the results from GPC. These observations further supported the potential use of the P(LLA-CL) nanofibre in blood vessel tissue engineering.