Summary
Electrospun nanofibre scaffolds mimic the fibrous architecture of the natural extracellular matrix, which makes them appealing for skin tissue engineering — but the influence of fibre diameter on how skin cells behave had not been systematically resolved. In this study the authors produced homogeneous, randomly oriented poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofibres in five distinct average diameters spanning roughly 70 nm to 1120 nm, and evaluated how each affected the morphology, proliferation and mobility of keratinocytes and skin fibroblasts. The results show that fibre diameter is a critical parameter and that cell response is cell-type specific: keratinocytes were far more sensitive to fibre thickness than fibroblasts, becoming smaller and more rounded on the mats, with proliferation peaking on fibres around 305 nm. The findings give practical design rules for tailoring nanofibre scaffolds to specific skin-cell populations.