Hollow Fiber Membranes of PCL and PCL/Graphene as Scaffolds with Potential to Develop In Vitro Blood—Brain Barrier Models
Author/s
Mantecón-Oria, Marián; Diban, Nazely; Berciano, Maria T.; Rivero, Maria J.; David, Oana; [et al.]Date
2020-08Keywords
Mixed-matrix hollow fibers
Graphene
Poly(ε-caprolactone)
3D cell cultures
In vitro blood brain barrier (BBB) model
Abstract
There is a huge interest in developing novel hollow fiber (HF) membranes able to modulate neural differentiation to produce in vitro blood–brain barrier (BBB) models for biomedical and pharmaceutical research, due to the low cell-inductive properties of the polymer HFs used in current BBB models. In this work, poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and composite PCL/graphene (PCL/G) HF membranes were prepared by phase inversion and were characterized in terms of mechanical, electrical, morphological, chemical, and mass transport properties. The presence of graphene in PCL/G membranes enlarged the pore size and the water flux and presented significantly higher electrical conductivity than PCL HFs. A biocompatibility assay showed that PCL/G HFs significantly increased C6 cells adhesion and differentiation towards astrocytes, which may be attributed to their higher electrical conductivity in comparison to PCL HFs. On the other hand, PCL/G membranes produced a cytotoxic effect on the endothelial cell ...
Type
article