Preparation and characterization of chitosan/polycaprolactone vascular scaffolds by electrospinning

The chitosan/polycaprolactone(CS/PCL) vascular scaffolds were prepared by electrospinning in order to combine the advantage of chitosan(CS) and polycaprolactone(PCL) into the vascular scaffolds. The obtained CS/PCL vascular scaffolds were characterized by SEM and electronic universal testing machine. The endothelial progenitor cells(EPCs) were implanted in the scaffolds with various mass ratios of CS to PCL. The vascular scaffolds were examined by adhesion rate in different culturing times and the cells breeding was observed. The obtained CS/PCL vascular scaffolds show porous, nano-structured surfaces, similar to the natural extracellular matrix. When the mass ratio of CS to PCL is 0.5, the breaking elongation of CS/PCL vascular scaffolds reaches 31.64%, and the curves of stress-strain indicate that the obtained vascular scaffolds possess good elastic deformation. The adhesion rate of EPCs on CS/PCL vascular scaffolds is 95.1%, the observation of EPCs labeled with CM-DiI(chlormethylbenzamido-1, 1 dioctadecy l-3, 3, 3', 3'-tetramethylindocarbocyamine)after culturing 72 h by fluorescence microscopy also illustrates that CS/PCL vascular scaffolds are beneficial to cell growth and cell adhesion.