Electrospun nanofibers of ZnO-TiO2 hybrid: characterization and potential as an extracellular scaffold for supporting myoblasts

One-dimensional nanofibers have attracted tremendous attention because of their potential applications. Electrospinning technology enables industrial production of these nanofibers. This study aims to fabricate one-dimensional ZnO doped TiO2 by electrospinning and to characterize these hybrid nanofibers. The nanocomposite was prepared using colloidal gel composed of zinc nitrate, titanium isopropoxide and polyvinyl acetate. X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive x-ray analysis and transmission electron microscopy analysis confirmed the purity and crystalline nature of this material, whereas the diameter of these nanofibres estimated from scanning electron microscope (SEM), field emission SEM and transmission electron microscopy are between 200 and 300nm. Cell counting with Kit-8 assay at regular time intervals and phase-contrast microscopy data revealed that C2C12 cells proliferated well on ZnO/TiO2 nanofibers between 1 and 10 mu g/ml, and cellular attachments are visible by SEM. The nanostructured ZnO/TiO2 hybrid nanofibers show higher cell adhesion, proliferation and spreading behavior compared with the titanium substrate and control. Our study suggests that ZnO/TiO2 nanofibers could potentially be used in tissue engineering applications. The scalability, low cost, reproducibility and high-throughput capability of this technology is potentially beneficial to examine and optimizing a wide array of cell-nanofiber systems prior to in vivo experiments. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.