Development of Emu oil-loaded PCL/collagen bioactive nanofibers for proliferation and stemness preservation of human adipose-derived stem cells: possible application in regenerative medicine

Abstract

Adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) are promising candidate in stem cell therapies, and maintaining their stemness potential is vital to achieve effective treatment. Natural-based scaffolds have been recently attracted increasing attention in nanomedicine and drug delivery. In the present study, a polymeric nanofibrous scaffold was developed based on the polycaprolactone/Collagen (PCL/Coll) containing Emu oil as a bioactive material to induce the proliferation of ASCs, while simultaneously preserving the stemness property of those cells. Fabrication of the electrospun Emu oil-loaded PCL/Coll nanofibers was confirmed by using FE-SEM, FTIR, and tensile test. ASCs were seeded on two types of nanofibers (PCL/Coll and Emu oil-loaded PCL/Coll) and their proliferation, cell cycle progression, and stemness gene expressions were evaluated using MTT, propidium iodide staining, and qPCR during 14 days, respectively. The results indicated that ASCs displayed improved adhesion capacity with the higher rates of bioactivity and proliferation on the Emu oil-loaded nanofibers than the other groups. The proliferation capacity of ASCs on Emu oil-loaded PCL/Coll nanofibers was further confirmed by the cell cycle progression analysis. It was also found that Emu oil-loaded nanofibers significantly up-regulated the expression of stemness markers including sox-2, nanog, oct4, klf4, and c-Myc. The results demonstrated that the nanofibers containing Emu oil can reinforce the cell adhesion and enhance ASCs proliferation while preserving their stemness; therefore, using scaffolds containing natural products may have a great potential to enhance the in vitro expansion capacity of ASCs in the field of stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine.

Keywords:

• Emu oil
• nanofiber
• stem cell therapy
• regenerative medicine
• stemness preservation

Acknowledgements

The results which have been presented in the present article were extracted from the PhD thesis of Mr. Kazem Nejati-Koshki, who was supervised by Prof. Yousef Mortazavi and Prof. Nosratollah Zarghami. The authors also thank Stem Cell Research Center of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences for the technical support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

The authors would like to thank Zanjan University of Medical Sciences for the financial support and technical assistance.