Structure, morphology and cell affinity of poly(l-lactide) films surface-functionalized with chitosan nanofibers via a solid–liquid phase separation technique

Poly(l-lactide) films with a nano-structured surface by immobilizing chitosan nanofibers (CSNFs) for improving the cell affinity were fabricated via a solid-liquid phase separation technique. The successful grafting of CSNFs on the surface of poly(l-lactide) films was confirmed by the binding energy of N1s at 398.0 eV in the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the amide I and II bands of chitosan at 1650 and 1568 cm− 1 in the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Compared with the poly(l-lactide) film, the hydrophilicity was improved with a lower water contact angle of 83.3 ± 1.9° and 75.3 ± 2.5° for the CSNFs-grafted and CSNFs-grafted/anchored poly(l-lactide) films respectively. The scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy analyses showed that the grafted CSNFs with 50–500 nm in diameter were randomly arranged on the film surface and entangled with the anchored CSNFs on the outermost layer. The 3T3 fibroblasts culture indicated cells tended to attach and stretch along the CSNFs on the film surface. The cell viability measurement revealed that among all the samples, the film with both grafted and anchored CSNFs exhibited the highest cell proliferation rate that was twice as much of the poly(l-lactide) film at 7 d. Herein, engineering a nano-structured surface by solid–liquid phase separation will be a promising tool for surface modification of biomaterials.