Fabrication and investigation of nanofibrous matrices as esophageal tissue scaffolds using human non-keratinized, stratified, squamous epithelial cells

Abstract

Clinical conditions of the esophagus are conventionally treated by autologous grafts and are generally associated with complications such as leakage, infection and stenosis necessitating an alternative synthetic graft with superior outcomes. Therefore, in the present study, we have fabricated polymeric random and aligned nanofibers of PHBV, PHBV-gelatin, PCL and PCL-gelatin using electrospinning. The cell–matrix interaction, an essential parameter to obtain proper tissue regeneration, has been investigated using non-keratinized, stratified, squamous epithelial cells. Immunostaining of the filamentous actin morphology of epithelial cells on the nanofibers revealed the elongated and spread morphology demonstrating that the nanofibers provide proper contact guidance and right milieu for the cell growth and proliferation. The aligned nanofibrous scaffolds exhibited oriented cell growth along the fiber axis, which was not observed in the random nanofibers. PCL-gelatin nanofibers exhibited maximum cell proliferation when compared to other types of scaffolds investigated. There was no significant difference observed in the gene expression and cell proliferation between the random and aligned nanofibers (p > 0.05). However, gelatin incorporated PCL scaffold showed significantly higher cell proliferation and function gene expression levels than the PCL nanofibers (p < 0.05). Thus the study concludes that the nanofibrous scaffolds may have potential for the regeneration of mucosal layer of the esophagus tissue.