HUVECs grew and proliferated well on different membranes with the increase of culture time, indicating that PLCL/Gt-based nanofiber membranes were suitable for HUVECs adhesion and growth. At the same incubation time, PLCL/Gt group showed slightly lower cell density than other groups since PLCL/Gt surface had non REDV adhesive peptide. Other groups having REDV on surface can promote HUVECs adhesion and proliferation. This primarily attributed to HUVECs selective adhesion effect of REDV peptide. Besides, HUVECs density of PLCL/Gt-REDV/MCP@GCs group was significantly higher than other groups at 24 and 48 h, indicating that HUVECs induced the cleavage of MCP linker via the enzymatic reaction of MMP on cell membrane and triggered to release GCs for highly efficient transfection of HUVECs. Furthermore, HUVECs density on PLCL/Gt-REDV/UNMCP@GCs surface was almost similar to PLCL/Gt-REDV/MCP group, which also proved that the GCs were covalently linked on this surface. But these GCs could not be released from the surface because the GPQIGWGQ peptide linker was stable in the present of HUVECs. The above results demonstrated that PLCL/Gt-REDV/MCP@GCs surfaces can effectively promote the adhesion and proliferation of endothelial cells.
