Electroactive aniline pentamer cross-linking chitosan for stimulation growth of electrically sensitive cells

A new kind of electroactive polymers was synthesized by using aniline pentamer (AP) cross-linking chitosan (CS) in acetic acid/DMSO/DMF solution. UV-vis and CV confirmed the electroactivity of polymers in acidic aqueous solution. The amphiphilic polymers self-assembled into 200-300 nm micelles by dialysis against deionized water from the acetic acid buffer solution. Three samples with different weight percentages of AP were used to identify the relationship between the content of AP and the differentiation of rat neuronal pheochromocytoma PC-12 cells without external stimulation. From the results, samples with AP showed an obvious improvement in inducing PC-12 differentiation, while PC-12 on pure CS films had only little neurites on the fifth day; the cells on the films prepared from the samples with 4.9% and 9.5% AP even formed intricate networks. However, the influence of the AP content was the most significant at 4.9 wt % and it decreased when the content increased further.