Peptide modified nanofibrous scaffold promotes human mesenchymal stem cell proliferation and long-term passaging

Long-term culture, passage and proliferation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) cause loss of their stemness properties including self-renewal and multipotency. By optimizing the MSCs environment in vitro, maintaining the stemness state and better controlling the cell fate might be possible. We have recently reported the significant effects of bioactive Tat protein-derived peptide named R-peptide on hMSC adhesion, morphology and proliferation, which has demonstrated R-peptide enhanced MSC early adhesion and proliferation in comparison to other bioactive molecules including RGD peptide, fibronectin and collagen. In this study, R-peptide was used to evaluate stemness properties of MSCs after long-term passaging. R-peptide conjugated poly caprolactone (PCL) nanofibrous scaffold and unmodified nanofibrous scaffold were used to study the impact of R-peptide modified PCL nanofibers and PCL nanofibers on cell behavior. The results showed early formation of focal adhesion (FA) complex on R-peptide modified scaffolds at 30min after cell seeding. The rate of cell proliferation was significantly increased due to presence of R-peptide, and the MSCs marker analyses using flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry staining proved the ability of R-peptide to maintain mesenchymal stem cell properties (high proliferation, expression of multipotent markers and differentiation capacity) even after long-term passage culturing. Accordingly, our (The) results concluded that bioactive R-peptide in combination with nanofibrous scaffold can mimic the native ECM comprising micro/nano architecture and biochemical molecules in a best way. The designed scaffold can link extracellular matrix (ECM) to nucleus via formation of FA and organization of cytoskeleton, causing fast and strong attachment of MSCs and allowing integrin-mediated signaling to start.