Nune, Manasa (2019) Melanin incorporated electroactive and antioxidant silkfibroin nanofibrousscaffolds for nerve tissue engineering. Materials Science & Engineering C, 94. pp. 17-25. ISSN 0928-4931

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Abstract

Nerve restoration and repair in the central nervous system is complicated and requires several factors to beconsidered while designing the scaffolds like being bioactive as well as having neuroinductive, neuroconductiveand antioxidant properties. Aligned electrospun nanofibers provide necessary guidance and topographical cuesrequired for directing the axonal and neurite outgrowth during regeneration. Conduction of nerve impulses is amandatory feature of a typical nerve. The neuro-conductive property can be imparted by blending the biode-gradable, bioactive polymers with conductive polymers. This will provide additional features, i.e., electrical cuesto the already existing topographical and bioactive cues in order to make it a more multifaceted neuror-egenerative approach. Hence in the present study, we used a combination of silkfibroin and melanin for thefabrication of random and aligned electrospun nanofibrous composite scaffolds. We performed the physico-chemical characterization and also assessed their antioxidant properties. We also evaluated their neurogenicpotential using human neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y) for their cellular viability, proliferation, adhesion anddifferentiation levels. Designed nanofibrous scaffolds had adequate physical properties suitable as neural sub-strates to promote neuronal growth and regeneration. They stimulated the neuroblastoma cell attachment andviability indicating their biocompatible nature. Silk/melanin composite scaffolds have specifically exhibitedhigh antioxidant nature proven by the radical scavenging activity. Additionally, the melanin incorporatedaligned silkfibroin scaffolds promoted the cell differentiation into neurons and orientation along their axis. Ourresults confirmed the potential of melanin incorporated aligned silkfibroin scaffolds as the promising candidatesfor effective nerve regeneration and recovery.

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