Development of polyamide-6,6/chitosan electrospun hybrid nanofibrous scaffolds for tissue engineering application

The development of biofunctional and bioactive hybrid polymeric scaffolds seek to mitigate the current challenges in the emerging field of tissue engineering. In this paper, we report the fabrication of a biomimetic and biocompatible nanofibrous scaffolds of polyamide-6,6 (PA-6,6) blended with biopolymer chitosan via one step co-electrospinning technique. Different weight percentage of chitosan 10 wt%, 15 wt%, and 20 wt% were blended with PA-6,6, respectively. The nanocomposite electrospun scaffolds mats enabled to provide the osteophilic environment for cells growth and biomineralization. The morphological and physiochemical properties of the resulted scaffolds were studied using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The improvement in hydrophilicity and mechanical strength of the bio-nanocomposite mesh with 20 wt% chitosan embedded, was the desired avenue for adhesion, proliferation and maturation of osteoblast cells as compared to other sample groups and pure PA-6,6 fibrous mat. The biomineralization of the nanocomposite electrospun mats also showed higher ability to nucleate bioactive calcium phosphate (Ca/P) nanoparticles comparing to pristine PA-6,6. Furthermore, the biomimetic nature of scaffolds exhibited the cells viability and regeneration of pre-osteoblast (MC3T3-E1) cells which were assessed via in vitro cell culture test. Collectively, the results suggested that the optimized 20 wt% of chitosan supplemented hybrid electrospun fibrous scaffold has significant effect in biomedical field to create osteogenic capabilities for tissue engineering.