Using Plant Proteins to Develop Composite Scaffolds for Cell Culture Applications

Electrohydrodynamic printing (EHDP) is capable of fabricating scaffolds that consist of micro/nano scale orientated fibers for three-dimensional (3D) cell culture models and drug screening applications. One of the major hurdles that limit the widespread application of EHDP is the lack of diverse biomaterial inks with appropriate printability and desired mechanical and biological properties. In this work, we blended plant proteins with synthetic biopolymer poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) to develop composite biomaterial inks, such as PCL/gliadin and PCL/zein for scaffold fabrication through EHDP. The tensile test results showed that the composite materials with a relatively small amount of plant protein portions, such as PCL/gliadin-10 and PCL/zein-10, can significantly improve tensile properties of the fabricated scaffolds such as Young’s modulus and yield stress. These scaffolds were further evaluated by culturing mouse embryonic fibroblasts (NIH/3T3) cells and proven to enhance cell adhesion and proliferation, apart from temporary inhibition effects for PCL/gliadin-20 scaffold at the initial growth stage. After these plant protein nanoparticles were gradually released into culture medium, the generated nanoporous structures on the scaffold fiber surfaces became favorable for cellular attachment, migration, and proliferation. As competent candidates that regulate cell behaviors in 3D microenvironment, such composite scaffolds manifest a great potential in drug screening and 3D in vitro model development.