In tissue engineering related to the regeneration of damaged or lost tissue, excellent biodegradable materials are desired as temporary scaffolds to support cell growth and then disappear with the progress of tissue regeneration. We previously synthesized biodegradable poly(depsipeptide-co-lactide), poly[(Glc-Asp)-co-LA], and poly[(Glc-Lys)-co-LA] with reactive side-chain groups. In this study, to evaluate the utility of these copolymers as functional scaffolds for tissue regeneration, the effects of reactive and ionic side-chain groups on cell attachment and growth were investigated using copolymer films with various numbers of carboxyl or amino groups. Poly[(Glc-Lys)-co-LA] and poly[(Glc-Asp)-co-LA] films having appropriate positive or negative charges exhibited higher cell attachment ability than did poly-L-lactide. Good cell growth was observed on the copolymer films. During cell culture, the copolymer films exhibited higher degradation rates related to the depsipeptide content. Biodegradable polymer matrices with reactive surfaces for cell growth successfully were prepared using copolymers with various numbers of depsipeptide units. Varying the depsipeptide unit numbers in the copolymer could change the degradation rate of these matrices.

In tissue engineering, excellent biodegradable materials are desired as temporary scaffolds to support cell growth and disappear with the progress of tissue regeneration. We previously synthesized biodegradable poly(depsipeptide-co-lactide), poly[(Glc-Asp)-co-LA] and poly[(Glc-Lys)-co-LA], having reactive side-chain groups. Then, the effects of reactive and ionic side-chain groups on cell attachment and growth were investigated using co-polymer films with various amounts of carboxyl or amino groups. In this study, to evaluate the utility of these co-polymers as functional scaffolds for tissue regeneration, 3-dimensional porous sponges were prepared by freeze-drying method and the effects of reactive and ionic side-chain groups on cell growth and degradation behavior were investigated using co-polymer sponges with various amounts of carboxyl or amino groups. Good cell growth was observed on the co-polymer sponges. During cell culture, the co-polymer sponges exhibited various degradation rates related to the depsipeptide unit content. Three-dimensional biodegradable polymer matrices with reactive surface, controllable degradation behavior and good cell growth were successfully prepared using these co-polymers. Such kinds of co-polymer matrices are good candidate for scaffold for tissue engineering.