Nowadays, the use of green materials has been expanded for biomedical and bioengineering. Egg white (EW) is a low-cost and abundant candidate for various biomedical applications. In this study, a nanofibrous scaffold based on EW blended with polycaprolactone/gelatin (PCL/Gel) was fabricated using electrospinning. The fabricated samples were characterized using Physicochemical analyses including SEM, FT-IR spectroscopy, tensile assay, and contact angle measurement. The optimized samples were used as scaffolds for cell culture. The average diameter of prepared nanofibers measured 215.9 nm to 434.1 nm. The FT-IR and DSC assays showed the physical blending of EW with PCL/Gel was appropriate and there wasn’t a new chemical reaction between them. The contact angle test indicated the hydrophilicity of the scaffolds was decreased from 26.25º to 116.5º by increasing the EW amount in the PCL/Gel (0%-15%). Furthermore, the electrospun PCL/Gel nanofibrous mat with 10% EW exhibited better bioactivity than other samples with different amounts of EW. Therefore, adding 10% of EW to PCL/Gel nanofibers can improve the efficiency of fibroblast culture. This research introduced a nanofibrous scaffold for skin tissue engineering containing Gel and EW as low-cost and available materials that can be used for biological applications and also for productions like engineered leathers.

Background and purpose: Pomegranate seed extract (PSE) possesses anticancer activities and healing effects. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are being considered a new candidate for cancer treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of PSE on the cell cycle and apoptosis of the MCF-7 cell line in the co-culture condition with ADSCs. Experimental approach: MCF-7 and ADSC cells (ratio 1/1) were cultured in a transwell plate with and without PSE (PSE-co-culture and co-culture groups). MCF-7 cells were cultured in monolayer without and with PSE (mono-culture and PSE-mono-culture groups). MCF-7 cell line was harvested on day 5 and cell viability, apoptotic activity, cell cycle, and gene expression were evaluated. Findings / Results: The results of the MTT assay indicated that PSE at 100 μg/mL has the highest cytotoxicity on the MCF-7 in the PSE-co-culture group. The cell cycle analysis revealed that ADSCs in combination with PSE significantly increased the population of MCF-7 cells in the G1 phase, resulting in the arrest of MCF-7 cells cycle in the G0/G1 transition. In addition, the most apoptotic MCF-7 cells (41.5%) were detected in the same group. Expression of BAX and caspase3 genes were upregulated while anti-apoptotic (BCL-2) and angiogenesis inducer (VEGF) genes were downregulated in the PSE-co-culture group compared with the other groups. Conclusion and implications: ADSCs reduced cell viability and proliferation of MCF-7 cells in co-culture conditions and adding PSE to the medium increased the apoptosis of cancer cells. This study suggests that ADSCs with PSE can suppress tumor cells.