Surface characteristics and biocompatibility of hybrid conducting polymer films made of PEDOT and PANI

Scanning electron micrographs of PANI, PEDOT amd PANI-PEDOT electrodeposited films, showing the difference in surface morphologies. Morphological characterization was carried out employing a Phenom ProX scanning electron microscope (SEM) (Phenom ProX, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) operating at 10–15 kV. A mixed neural population was extracted from the ventral mesencephalon (VM) of E14 rat embryos obtained by laparotomy from time-mated female Sprague–Dawley rats. VM derived cells were cultured on the surface of conducting polymer-coated Thermanox coverslips for 3, 7 and 14 days. After this time, cells were fixed and visualized through an in direct double-immunofluorescent labelling method: neurons were stained red (anti-β-tubulin III antibody produced in rabbit, Alexa Fluor 594 goat anti-rabbit IgG (H + L)), astrocytes were stained green (anti-GFAP antibody in mouse, Alexa Fluor 488 goat anti-mouse IgG/IgA/IgM (H + L)), cell nuclei were stained blue (4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole, DAPI). An Olympus Fluoview 1000 Confocal Microscope was used to collect fluorescent images with a scan size of 1024 × 1024 at a ratio 1:1 and 60 × magnification.