Polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/carbon nanotube (CNT) electrospun nanofibers: synthesis, characterization, their biocompatibility for L929 fibroblast cells and molecular docking studies

Abstract

There has been an important interest in to use of electrospun nanomaterials for tissue engineering applications due to the excellent scaffold-cell interaction provided by high interconnectivity and high porosity by electrospun nanofibers. In this study, Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and carbon nanotube-inserted PAN (PAN/CNT) nanofibers were produced by the electrospinning method and characterized by SEM, FT-IR, and EIS spectroscopy. Both PAN and PAN/CNT nanofibers were obtained beadless and ordered with the average fiber diameters of 277.61 +/- 43.6 and 171.01 +/- 48.4, respectively. The influence of CNT addition on PAN nanofibers was observed with the decrease of diameter and increase of electrical conductivity of nanofibers. Then, the biocompatibility of PAN and PAN/CNT nanofibers was evaluated by the MTT and AO/EB double-staining experiments. It was observed that the nanofibers showed no cytotoxic effect on L929 fibroblast cells. In the docking experiments, while both PAN and PAN/CNT showed energetically favorable interactions (Delta G = -4.60 kcal/mol; -7.26 kcal/mol, respectively) with the membrane bilayer complex, PAN/CNT formed a more stable binding with the cellular membrane compared to PAN alone. Docking results mechanistically support the more effective increase in the proliferation of L929 fibroblasts at high concentrations in vitro, as PAN/CNT exhibits stronger binding affinity and interaction with the cellular membrane. The increase in electrical conductivity of nanofibers influenced the proliferation positively, as well.