Nanofiber-mediated microRNA delivery to enhance differentiation and maturation of oligodendroglial precursor cells

Abstract Remyelination in the central nervous system (CNS) is critical in the treatment of many neural pathological conditions. Unfortunately, the ability to direct and enhance oligodendrocyte (OL) differentiation and maturation remains limited. It is known that microenvironmental signals, such as substrate topography and biochemical signaling, regulate cell fate commitment. Therefore, in this study, we developed a nanofiber-mediated microRNA (miR) delivery method to control oligodendroglial precursor cell (OPC) differentiation through a combination of fiber topography and gene silencing. Using poly(e-caprolactone) nanofibers, efficient knockdown of OL differentiation inhibitory regulators were achieved by either nanofiber alone (20–40%, p  + cells (p  + cells significantly (p