Plasma-Treated Flexible Aminoclay-Decorated Electrospun Nanofibers for Neural Stem Cell Self-Renewal

Biocompatible Mg- and Fe-aminoclays (MgAC and FeAC)-decorated polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers (NFs, diameter range: 190–380 nm) are prepared by the electrospinning process. There is a large increase in the biomolecular activities of the PAN NFs that were oxygen plasma (OP)-treated (the OPNFs) relative to those of the pristine PAN NFs, due to the OP treatment’s carboxylation and/or hydroxylation of the PAN NF surfaces. With morphological observation by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and following further confirmation of the Fourier-transform infrared (FI-IR) spectra of the as-prepared AC-OPNFs, human neural stem cell (NSC) self-renewal is tested, focusing on the relevant discrepancies among the AC-OPNFs, OPNFs, and pristine PAN NFs as flexible cellular matrices. Interestingly, NSCs are attached well on four NFs without conventional coating materials. Self-renewal of NSCs is confirmed by marker expressions such as PAX6 and N-CADHERIN. Among four NFs, FeAC-OPNFs shows the best property of NSC self-renewal. It is expected that AC-OPNFs can be xeno-free and protein-free extracellular matrices for supporting human NSC self-renewal.