Polymer scaffolds are used as an alternative to support tissue regeneration when it does not occur on its own. Cell response on polymer scaffolds is determined by factors such as polymer composition, topology, and the presence of other molecules. We evaluated the cellular response of murine skeletal muscle myoblasts on aligned or unaligned fibers obtained by electrospinning poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), and blends with poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) or decorin, a proteoglycan known to regulate myogenesis. The results showed that aligned PCL fibers with higher content of PLGA promote cell growth and improve the quality of differentiation with PLGA scaffolds having the highest confluence at over 68% of coverage per field of view for myoblasts and more than 7% of coverage for myotubes. At the same time, the addition of decorin greatly improves the quantity and quality of differentiated cells in terms of cell fusion, myotube length and thickness, being 71, 10, and 51% greater than without the protein, respectively. Interestingly, our results suggest that at certain concentrations, the effect of decorin on myoblast differentiation exceeds the topological effect of fiber alignment. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 105A: 2241-2251, 2017.

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Nanostructures of poly(2,2′:5′,2′′-terthiophene) have been synthesized using only electrochemical techniques. To this end, a porous silica film modified platinum disc was used as working electrode (Pt|(SiO 2 ) n ). The silica coating acts as a template so that the subsequent electro-polymerization occurs in their confined space pores, perpendicular to the electrodic surface. The current response of the obtained polymeric deposit is much greater than that exhibited by the solid massive polymer (generated under identical conditions but without template), accounting for the significant increase of the p-doping/undoping charge. Template removal was accomplished by treating the deposits with HF solutions. It was demonstrated that as the template is removed, the charge of the nanostructured electrodes increases even more. Electro-deposit characterization was supplemented using transmission electron microscopy, TEM, and FT-Raman spectroscopy, which revealed the obtaining of electrodes modified with polymeric nanostructures vertically aligned upon the electrode surface. Thus, a methodology employing solely electrochemical techniques that enables the obtainment of polymeric nanodeposits directly on the electrode surface was proposed. This approach allows foreseeing a significant progress in applications wherein these materials are useful, since this methodology, first tested for polythiophene, is applicable to various starting units capable of being electro-synthesized.