The study described a novel bone tissue scaffold fabricated by computer-aided, air pressure-aided deposition system to control the macro- and microstructure precisely. The porcine bone marrow stem cells (PBMSCs) seeded on either mPEG-PCL-mPEG (PCL) or mPEG-PCL-mPEG/hydroxyapatite (PCL/HA) composite scaffold were cultured under osteogenic medium to test the ability of osteogenesis in vitro. The experimental outcomes indicated that both scaffolds possessed adequate pore size, porosity, and hydrophilicity for the attachment and proliferation of PBMSCs and the PBMSCs expressed upregulated genes of osteogensis and angiogenesis in similar manner on both scaffolds. The major differences between these two types of the scaffolds were the addition of HA leading to higher hardness of PCL/HA scaffold, cell proliferation, and VEGF gene expression in PCL/HA scaffold. However, the in vivo bone forming efficacy between PBMSCs seeded PCL and PCL/HA scaffold was different from the in vitro results. The outcome indicated that the PCL/HA scaffold which had bone-mimetic environment due to the addition of HA resulted in better bone regeneration and mechanical strength than those of PCL scaffold. Therefore, providing a bone-mimetic scaffold is another crucial factor for bone tissue engineering in addition to the biocompatibility, 3D architecture with high porosity, and interpored connection.

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Bone tissue engineering is an emerging approach to provide viable substitutes for bone regeneration. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) is a good candidate of bone scaffold because of several advantages such as hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, and intrinsic resistance to protein adsorption and cell adhesion. However, its low compressive strength limits application for bone regeneration. Poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), a hydrophobic nonionic polymer, is adopted to enhance the compressive strength of PEG alone.We aimed to investigate the in-vitro response of osteoblast-like cells cultured with porous scaffolds of triblock PEG-PCL-PEG copolymer fabricated by an air pressure-aided deposition system. A desktop air pressure-aided deposition system that involves melting and plotting PEG-PCL-PEG was used to fabricate three-dimensional scaffolds having rectangular pores. The experimental results showed that PEG-PCL-PEG with a molecular weight of 25,000 can be melted and stably deposited through a heating nozzle at an air pressure of 0.3 MPa and no crack occurs after it solidifies. The scaffolds with pre-determined pore size of 400× 420 μm and a porosity of 79 % were fabricated, and their average compressive strength was found to be 18.2 MPa. Osteoblast-like cells, MC3T3-E1, were seeded on fabricated scaffolds to investigate the in-vitro response of cells including toxicity and cellular locomotion. In a culture period of 28 days, the neutral-red stained osteoblasts were found to well distributed in the interior of the scaffold. Furthermore, the cellular attachment and movement in the first 10 h of cell culture were observed with time-lapse microscopy indicating that the porous PEG-PCL-PEG scaffolds fabricated by air pressure-aided deposition system is non-toxicity for osteoblast-like cells.

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