Research Article Nanofibrous Chitosan-Polyethylene Oxide Engineered Scaffolds: A Comparative Study between Simulated Structural Characteristics and Cells Viability Mohammad Kazemi Pilehrood, 1 Mandana Dilamian, 2 Mina Mirian, 3 Hojjat Sadeghi-Aliabadi, 3 Laleh Maleknia, 2 Pertti Nousiainen, 1 and Ali Harlin 4 1 Department of Materials Science, Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 589, 33101 Tampere, Finland 2 Department of Textile Engineering, Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch, P.O. Box 11365-4435, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 81745-359, Isfahan, Iran 4 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1000, 02044 VTT, Finland Correspondence should be addressed to Hojjat Sadeghi-Aliabadi; sadeghi@pharm.mui.ac.ir Received 25 December 2013; Revised 7 April 2014; Accepted 8 May 2014; Published 4 June 2014 Academic Editor: Kibret Mequanint Copyright © 2014 Mohammad Kazemi Pilehrood et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 3D nanoibrous chitosan-polyethylene oxide (PEO) scafolds were fabricated by electrospinning at diferent processing parameters. he structural characteristics, such as pore size, overall porosity, pore interconnectivity, and scafold percolative eiciency (SPE), were simulated by a robust image analysis. Mouse ibroblast cells (L929) were cultured in RPMI for 2 days in the presence of various samples of nanoibrous chitosan/PEO scafolds. Cell attachments and corresponding mean viability were enhanced from 50% to 110% compared to that belonging to a control even at packed morphologies of scafolds constituted from pores with nanoscale diameter. To elucidate the correlation between structural characteristics within the depth of the scafolds’ proile and cell viability, a comparative analysis was proposed. his analysis revealed that larger iber diameters and pore sizes can enhance cell viability. On the contrary, increasing the other structural elements such as overall porosity and interconnectivity due to a simultaneous reduction in iber diameter and pore size through the electrospinning process can reduce the viability of cells. In addition, it was found that manipulation of the processing parameters in electrospinning can compensate for the efects of packed morphologies of nanoibrous scafolds and can thus potentially improve the iniltration and viability of cells. 1. Introduction In tissue regeneration, many attempts have been made to explore the material properties and processing methods pos- sessing the highest biomimicry with native tissues. Implan- tations of 3D ibrous scafolds can mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM)consisting of proteoglycans [1, 2] and the network of protein ibers (50–500 nm diameter) [3–7] sur- rounding the cells in the microenvironment. Electrospinning is a cost-efective way of producing ultraine iber from wide varieties of polymers by the induction of extreme electrostatic force to a polymer solution. In particular, biocompatible nanoibrous membrane fabricated by the electrospinning process has been addressed in many literatures as a potential candidate for tissue scafolds [3, 7–12] and drug carrier mediums [13–16]. However, apart from the biocompatibility and mechanical properties, 3D and multilayer architectures as well as the interconnected pore coniguration are key struc- tural parameters making the electrospun scafolds convenient in tissue engineering. Nonetheless, to succeed in exploiting such 3D structural conformations, it is of signiicance that initially the cells introduced permeate and interact within the diferent depths of the scafold proile. In other words, the cellular viability is correlated with the degree of iniltration and attachment of cells within the ibrous matrix. In both in vitro and in vivo systems, regardless of the diferent aspects Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 438065, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/438065