Preparation of inherently
bioactive scaffolds has become a challenging
issue owing to their complicated synthesis and nonrobust modified
cell-actuating property. Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs), due
to their combined specialties of liquid crystals and elastomers as
well as their ability to respond to various kinds of stimuli, have
reversibly led to the design of a new class of stimuli-responsive
tissue-engineered scaffolds. In this line, in the first stage of this
research work, synthesis and evaluation of acrylate-based LCE films
(LCE
film
) encompassing mesogenic monomers are carried out.
In the second step, the design of an affordable electrospinning technique
for preparing LCE nanofibers (LCE
fiber
) as a problematic
topic, thanks to the low molecular weight of the mesogenic chains
of LCEs, is investigated. For this purpose, two approaches are considered,
including (1) photo-cross-linking of electrospun LCE
fiber
and (2) blending LCE with poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) to produce
morphologically stable nanofibers (PCL-LCE
fiber
). In the
following, thermal, mechanical, and morphological evaluations show
the optimized crosslinker (mol)/aliphatic spacer (mol) molar ratio
of 50:50 for LCE
film
samples. On the other hand, for LCE
fiber
samples, the appropriate amounts of excessive mesogenic
monomer and PCL/LCE (v/v) to fabricate the uniform nanofibers are
determined to be 20% and 1:2, respectively. Eventually, PC12 cell
compatibility and the impact of the liquid crystalline phase on the
PC12 cell dynamic behavior of the samples are examined. The obtained
results reveal that PC12 cells cultured on electrospun PCL-LCE
fiber
nanofibers with an average diameter of ∼659 nm
per sample are alive and the scaffold has susceptibility for cell
proliferation and actuation because of the rapid increase in cell
density and number of singularity points formed in time-lapse cell
imaging. Moreover, the PCL-LCE
fiber
nanofibrous scaffold
exhibits a high performance for cell differentiation according to
detailed biological evaluations such as gene expression level measurements.
The time-lapse evaluation of PC12 cell flow fields confirms the significant
influence of the reprogrammable liquid crystalline phase in the PCL-LCE
fiber
nanofibrous scaffold on topographical cue induction compared
to the biodegradable PCL nanofibers.