Dose-dependent effects of gamma irradiation on the materials properties and cell proliferation of electrospun polycaprolactone tissue engineering scaffolds

摘要

Electrospun membranes of polycaprolactone are widely used for biomedicalapplications like wound dressings and tissue engineering scaffolds. It is important to sterilizethis material using the most accepted method, the gamma irradiation. In this study, we haveevaluated the sterilizability of electrospun polycaprolactone membranes with gammaradiation of varying doses. The irradiated materials were assessed for the changes inmorphology, crystallinity, surface degradation, hydrophilicity, mechanical property, sterilityand the cell proliferation. Our results demonstrate that electrospun polycaprolactone can beeffectively sterilized by gamma irradiation, however a higher dose of radiation affect the materials properties. The irradiated membranes showed improved hydrophilicity andfibroblast cell proliferation.