Selective Cell Adhesion on Peptide–Polymer Electrospun Fiber Mats

Abstract

Electrospun polymer fibers are valuable for a number of applications ranging from catalysis to drug delivery. At times, lack of biocompatibility, biodegradability, and hydrophobicity presents hindrance in their use in biological applications. Aromatic amino acids are veritable precursors for biocompatible nanofibers, which could also be chemically modified with suitable addressable recognition tags to invoke specific binding events. This study presents an attractive strategy for constructing electrospun fibrous mats from dityrosine folic acid conjugate and polycaprolactone to afford a new biomaterial displaying excellent tensile properties, biocompatibility, and cell adhesion. We demonstrate that appropriate choice of peptide-to-polymer ratio gave mats with sufficient hydrophilic and better mechanical properties and allowed favorable interaction of folate receptor presenting cells with electrospun mats, while the ones lacking folate receptor did not exhibit binding. Such selectivity could be possibly invoked for separation and also for custom synthesis of nanomats for healthcare applications.