The effects of aligned poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) nanofibrous mat containing gold nanoparticles after planting onto an injured spinal cord

Abstract

<p><span>Transplanted cells rarely survive because of the inflammatory cytokines after spinal cord injury. To increase the survival, we synthesized a hydrophilic and aligned nanofibrous mat. We electrospun thiolate (SH)/aligned (A) poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanofibrous mats. The PLGA-SH (A) nanofibrous mats were conjugated with gold nanoparticles (GNPs) to increase the hydrophilicity. The contact angle is decreased from 105.3° ± 5.2 (for randomly directional PLGA mats) to 28.1° ± 2.8 (for PLGA-GNP (A) mats). Green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing neural progenitor cells (NPCs) were dissociated from the embryonic spinal cords of Fisher 344 rats. We embedded the embryonic spinal-cord-derived NPCs in glycol chitosan (gC)-oxidized hyaluronate (oHA) hydrogels (=NPC graft). The NPC graft was transplanted into spinal-cord-injured Sprague-Dawley rats. Afterwards, the aligned PLGA-GNP nanofibrous mat was positioned onto the NPC-grafted region (=Injury + NPC graft + PLGA-GNP (A) nanofibrous mat (INP) group). We also added Injury (=I) and Injury + NPC graft (=IN) groups as control groups. The survival outcomes of transplanted NPCs were noticeably increased in the INP group compared to those in the IN group. We suggest a separate implanting therapy of NPCs and a hydrophilic PLGA-GNP (A) nanofibrous mat for spinal cord injuries.</span><br></p>