Effect of ionizing radiation and He-Ne laser on enhancing the growth of vascular endothelial cells on nano based scaffold

Abstract

Over the years, most of vascular diseases like cardiovascular diseases continue to increase and affect human health or in many cases lead to death because blood cannot reach to desired tissues or organs so closed blood vessels must be changed by vascular scaffolds to substitute the original vessel. Over days, these scaffolds cannot do its work perfectly due their occlusion. Preventing this occlusion depend on two approaches, the first is the correct choice of a tissue engineered vascular scaffold with suitable properties and the second is the success of seeding endothelial cells onto the selected scaffold because endothelial cells can release factors that can prevent its occlusion. Actually this study was designed to fabricate a tissue engineered vascular scaffold in nano scale to mimic the structure of the main component of blood vessel. This scaffold was prepared from a synthetic polymer called polycaprolactone (PCL) in a nanofiber form by using electrospinning technique by dissolving it in 1:1 chloroform and N, N dimethyl formamide (DMF) as a solvent system with a concentration 13%. Moreover, a polycaprolactone microfiber scaffold may be prepared by the same technique with the same concentration by dissolving the polymer in 2:1 chloroform and DMF. So this study succeeded in making an important and effective comparison between nano and micro fiber shapes for the same polymer (PCL) in their surface morphology and their interaction with cells transplanted on them, this comparison has been made through scanning electron microscope (SEM) images for the scaffolds. To kill all bacteria on these fabricated scaffolds and to be suitable for cell transplantation, this study used ionizing radiation (gamma radiation) with a dose 25 to 30 KGy as a sterilization method for the scaffoldsby using the Mega Gamma Irradiation Unit at the National Center for Radiation Research and Technology – Egyptian