Enhancing proliferation and migration of fibroblast cells by electric stimulation based on triboelectric nanogenerator

Abstract Cell stimulation by electric signal is an important approach for the advancement of biomedicine. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG), capable of converting mechanical energies to electricity, provides an alternative strategy to stimulate cells in a desired fashion. In this work, a TENG driven electric stimulation system has been designed for biosafety evaluation and exploration of the fibroblast cell behaviors. A rotatory disc-shaped TENG (RD-TENG) was fabricated to obtain an adjustable range of alternating current outputs. The peak current generated in a range of 10–50 μA is suitable for promoting cellular proliferation behavior of L929 cells. At the optimum value of 50 μA, the promotion rate reached 53.8 ± 2.66% after two-day of intermittent stimulation. Also, the migration rate was increased by about 67% than that of the cells in the control group. In addition, under stimulation, the proliferation-related gene of L929 cells - proliferating cell nuclear antigen (Pcna) and the two migration-related genes - fibroblast growth factor 2 (Fgf2) and delta like non-canonical notch ligand 1 (Dlk1) were also found up-regulated, suggesting that TENG stimulation regulates cell proliferation and migration at the level of gene expression. The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of TENG and its safe operation conditions in biomedical stimulation, which paves a way for practical application of TENG on tissue formation, reepithelialization and tissue remodeling.