Effect of orientation and density of nanotopography in dermal wound healing

We report on the effect of synthetic extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold in the form of uniformly-spaced nanogrooved surfaces in dermal wound healing. The rate of wound coverage was measured on various nanotopographical densities with vertical or parallel orientation using nanogrooves of 550 nm width with three different gaps of 550, 1100, and 2750 nm (spacing ratio: 1:1, 1:2 and 1:5). Guided by the nanotopographical cues in the absence of growth factors in wound healing process, the cultured NIH-3T3 cells demonstrated distinctly different migration speed, cell division, and ECM production as dictated by the topographical density and orientation, whereas the proliferation rate turned out to be nearly the same. Based on our experimental results, the nanopattern of 1:2 spacing ratio yielded the best wound healing performance in terms of migration speed, which seems similar to the natural organization of collagen fibers.