Silk fibroin modified porous poly(E-caprolactone) scaffold for human fibroblast culture in vitro

In order to develop scaffolds with improved biocompatibility for cell culture, hybrid scaffolds were fabricated by modifying poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) with silk fibroin (SF) in a porous structure. Scanning electronic microscopy revealed that the morphology of the PCL-SF hybrid scaffold was affected by the concentration of the SF solution. Availability of SF on the surface and the conformational transition induced by methanol treatment were proved by attenuated total reflection Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), and wettability of the hybrid scaffold was greatly improved. To evaluate scaffold biocompatibility, human fibroblasts were cultured on the hybrid scaffold with the unmodified PCL scaffold as control. An MTT assay indicated that although fewer cells were initially held on the hybrid scaffold after one day of culture, comparable cell numbers were achieved after four days and significantly more cells proliferated on the hybrid after seven days. The cell morphology also indicated that the PCL-SF hybrid scaffold was favorable for cell culture. This study suggests that surface modification with SF would be an effective way to improve the biocompatibility of PCL, facilitating its application in practical tissue engineering. (C) 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.