Poly( amino acid)-based fibrous scaffolds modified with surface-pendant peptides for cartilage tissue engineering

In this study, fibrous scaffolds based on poly(gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG) were investigated in terms of the chondrogenic differentiation potential of human tooth germ stem cells (HTGSCs). Through the solution-assisted bonding of the fibres, fully connected scaffolds with pore sizes in the range 20-400 mu m were prepared. Biomimetic modification of the PBLG scaffolds was achieved by a two-step reaction procedure: first, aminolysis of the PBLG fibres' surface layers was performed, which resulted in an increase in the hydrophilicity of the fibrous scaffolds after the introduction of N-5-hydroxyethyl-L-glutamine units; and second, modification with the short peptide sequence azidopentanoyl-GGGRGDSGGGY-NH2, using the 'click' reaction on the previously modified scaffold with 2-propynylside-chains, was performed. Radio-assay of the I-125-labelled peptide was used to evaluate the RGD density in the fibrous scaffolds ( which varied in the range 10(-3) -10 pM/cm(2)). All the PBLG scaffolds, especially with density 90 +/- 20 fM/cm(2) and 200 +/- 100 fM/cm(2) RGD, were found to be potentially suitable for growth and chondrogenic differentiation of HTGSCs. Copyright (C) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.