Research
Incorporation of functionalized gold nanoparticles into nanofibers for enhanced attachment and differentiation of mammalian cells
1 Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (WPI-iCeMS), Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
2 École Normale Supérieure, CNRS-ENS-UPMC UMR 8640, 24 rue Lhomond, Paris, 75005, France
3 Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
Journal of Nanobiotechnology 2012, 10:23 doi:10.1186/1477-3155-10-23
Published: 11 June 2012Abstract
Background
Electrospun nanofibers have been widely used as substrata for mammalian cell culture owing to their structural similarity to natural extracellular matrices. Structurally consistent electrospun nanofibers can be produced with synthetic polymers but require chemical modification to graft cell-adhesive molecules to make the nanofibers functional. Development of a facile method of grafting functional molecules on the nanofibers will contribute to the production of diverse cell type-specific nanofiber substrata.
Results
Small molecules, peptides, and functionalized gold nanoparticles were successfully incorporated with polymethylglutarimide (PMGI) nanofibers through electrospinning. The PMGI nanofibers functionalized by the grafted AuNPs, which were labeled with cell-adhesive peptides, enhanced HeLa cell attachment and potentiated cardiomyocyte differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells.
Conclusions
PMGI nanofibers can be functionalized simply by co-electrospinning with the grafting materials. In addition, grafting functionalized AuNPs enable high-density localization of the cell-adhesive peptides on the nanofiber. The results of the present study suggest that more cell type-specific synthetic substrata can be fabricated with molecule-doped nanofibers, in which diverse functional molecules are grafted alone or in combination with other molecules at different concentrations.
