Semi self-doped electroconductive and biocompatible polyaniline/sulfonated β-cyclodextrin (PANI/SCD) inclusion complex with potential use in regenerative medicine

The aim of this study was to synthesize and characterize a semi self-doped polyaniline/sulfonated β-cyclodextrin (PANI/SCD) inclusion complex with an optimum electroconductivity and a maximized biocompatibility. In this work, β-cyclodextrin (CD) was sulfonated in which sulfonic acid group on the prepared SCD act as the dopant group. PANI/SCD inclusion complex was synthesized using interfacial oxidative polymerization of aniline in presence of SCD and was characterized by elemental analysis, ¹H-NMR, FT-IR, XRD, SEM and EIS analyses. The electrical conductivity of the PANI/SCD inclusion complex was found about 2.23 µS⋅cm⁻¹ in dedoped form and was almost equal to each of HCl doped PANI. Cytotoxicity of the PANI, PANI/CD, and PANI/SCD were studied both in HCl doped and dedoped forms using bone marrow-derived rabbit mesenchymal stem cells (rbMSCs) in compliance with ISO standard. Simultaneous effect of different parameters on cell biocompatibility of the synthesized materials investigated using two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple comparison tests. Despite the fact that the PANI/SCD was found to be more cytotoxic than the PANI/CD, but due to its higher electrical conductivity, it can be considered as a material with optimum electroconductivity-biocompatibility balance and a potential use in tissue engineering and/or regenerative medicine as an electroactive scaffold.