The interaction between bone marrow stromal cells and RGD-modified three-dimensional porous polycaprolactone scaffolds

We previously established a simple method to immobilize the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) peptide on polycaprolactone (PCL) two-dimensional film surfaces that significantly improved bone marrow stromal cell (BMSC) adhesion to these films. The current work extends this modification strategy to three-dimensional (3D) PCL scaffolds to investigate BMSC attachment, cellular distribution and cellularity, signal transduction and survival on the modified PCL scaffold compared to those on the untreated ones. The results demonstrated that treatment of 3D PCL scaffold surfaces with 1,6-hexanediamine introduced the amino functional groups onto the porous PCL scaffold homogenously as detected by a ninhydrin staining method. Followed by the cross-linking reaction, RGDC peptide was successfully immobilized on the surface of PCL scaffold. Although the static seeding method used in this study caused heterogeneous cell distribution, the RGD-modified PCL scaffold still demonstrated the improved BMSC attachment and cellular distribution in the scaffold. More importantly, the integrin-mediated signal transduction FAK–PI3K–Akt pathway was significantly up-regulated by RGD modification and a subsequent increase in cell survival and growth was found in the modified scaffold. The present study introduces an easy method to immobilize RGD peptide on the 3D porous PCL scaffold and provides further evidence that modification of 3D PCL scaffolds with RGD peptides elicits specific cellular responses and improves the final cell–biomaterial interaction.