Combining oxygen plasma treatment with anchorage of cationized gelatin for enhancing cell affinity of poly(lactide-co-glycolide)

Surface characteristics greatly influence attachment and growth of cells on biomaterials. Although polylactone-type biodegradable polymers have been widely used as scaffold materials for tissue engineering, lack of cell recognition sites, poor hydrophilicity and low surface energy lead to a bad cell affinity of the polymers, which limit the usage of polymers as scaffolds in tissue engineering. In the present study, surface of poly (l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) was modified by a method of combining oxygen plasma treatment with anchorage of cationized gelatin. Modification effect of the method was compared with other methods of oxygen plasma treatment, cationized gelatin or gelatin coating and combining oxygen plasma treatment with anchorage of gelatin. The change of surface property was compared by contact angles, surface energy, X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurement. The optimum oxygen pretreatment time determined by surface energy was 10 min when the power was 50 W and the oxygen pressure was 20 Pa. Analysis of the stability of gelatin and cationized gelatin anchored on PLGA by XPS, ATR-FTIR, contact angles and surface energy measurement indicated the cationized gelatin was more stable than gelatin. The result using mouse NIH 3T3 fibroblasts as model cells to evaluate cell affinity in vitro showed the cationized gelatin-anchored PLGA (OCG-PLGA) was more favorable for cell attachment and growth than oxygen plasma treated PLGA (O-PLGA) and gelatin-anchored PLGA (OG-PLGA). Moreover cell affinity of OCG-PLGA could match that of collagen-anchored PLGA (AC-PLGA). So the surface modification method combining oxygen plasma treatment with anchorage of cationized gelatin provides a universally effective way to enhance cell affinity of polylactone-type biodegradable polymers.