Hollow Fiber Membranes of PCL and PCL/Graphene as Scaffolds with Potential to Develop In Vitro Blood-Brain Barrier Models.
Marián Mantecón-Oria, Nazely Diban, Maria T Berciano, Maria J Rivero, Oana David, Miguel Lafarga, Olga Tapia, Ane Urtiaga
Author Information
Marián Mantecón-Oria: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, ETSIIyT, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain.
Nazely Diban: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, ETSIIyT, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain. ORCID
Maria T Berciano: Instituto de Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla (IDIVAL), Cardenal H. Oria s/n, 39011 Santander, Spain.
Maria J Rivero: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, ETSIIyT, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain. ORCID
Oana David: TECNALIA, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Mikeletegi Pasealekua 2, 20009 San Sebastián, Spain. ORCID
Miguel Lafarga: Instituto de Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla (IDIVAL), Cardenal H. Oria s/n, 39011 Santander, Spain.
Olga Tapia: Instituto de Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla (IDIVAL), Cardenal H. Oria s/n, 39011 Santander, Spain. ORCID
Ane Urtiaga: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, ETSIIyT, University of Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain.
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 polymerHFs 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 PCLHFs. 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 PCLHFs. On the other hand, PCL/G membranes produced a cytotoxic effect on the endothelial cell line HUVEC presumably related with a higher production of intracellular reactive oxygen species induced by the nanomaterial in this particular cell line. These results prove the potential of PCL HF membranes to grow endothelial cells and PCL/G HF membranes to differentiate astrocytes, the two characteristic cell types that could develop in vitro BBB models in future 3D co-culture systems.
