Magnetic Resonance Functional Nano-Hydroxyapatite Incorporated Poly(Caprolactone) Composite Scaffolds forIn SituMonitoring of Bone Tissue Regeneration by MRI

Abstract

In this study, we have reported the incorporation of a multi-modal contrast agent based on hydroxyapatite nanocrystals, within a poly(caprolactone)(PCL) nanofibrous scaffold by electrospinning. The multifunctional hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (MF-nHAp) showed simultaneous contrast enhancement for three major molecular imaging techniques. In this article, the magnetic resonance (MR) contrast enhancement ability of the MF-nHAp was exploited for the purpose of potentially monitoring as well as for influencing tissue regeneration. These MF-nHAp containing PCL scaffolds were engineered in order to enhance the osteogenic potential as well as its MR functionality for their application in bone tissue engineering. The nano-composite scaffolds along with pristine PCL were evaluated physico-chemically and biologically in vitro, in the presence of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). The incorporation of 30-40 nm sized MF-nHAp within the nanofibers showed a substantial increase in scaffold strength, protein adsorption, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation of hMSCs along with enhanced MR functionality. This preliminary study was performed to eventually exploit the MR contrast imaging capability of MF-nHAp in nanofibrous scaffolds for real-time imaging of the changes in the tissue engineered construct.

Manganese doped nano-bioactive glass for magnetic resonance imaging

“…Development of a contrast-enabled scaffold can greatly aid in non-invasive monitoring of bone regeneration [1] that can facilitate better clinical evaluation of the implanted scaffold. Presently CT is being used to image tissue growth in the scaffold, but the use of high energy radiation and poor contrast properties are major limitations [2].…”

Design, construction and mechanical testing of digital 3D anatomical data-based PCL–HA bone tissue engineering scaffold

“…The BTE scaffold materials vary widely, and many have been tried towards the repairing of bone defects, such as HA, PLA, polyamide, and chitosan. The current hot spot is to find and use the degradable materials, or the combination of degradable (MR Functional Nano-HA [18], superparamagnetic iron doped HA nanoparticles [19], nanocomposite magnetic scaffolds [20], RGD [12], and homogeneously plasma [21], etc.) and non-degradable materials, to construct the 3d tissue engineering scaffold, providing the cells a 3d growth space, at the same time, the scaffold itself has the biological activity, which could induce the cell differentiation and vascular ingrowth [22,23].…”

“…As for the ABTES that has larger area or complex shape, how to get the accurate 3d anatomical data for its construction is a much more difficult problem, especially in the customized ABTES study, how to get the individualized anatomical data, and to design based on the lesionindividualized data, thus getting the proper 3D morphology of scaffold that could repair and reconstruct, is one of the difficulties in ABTES construction [12,[17][18][19][20][21]25]. In 1988, Geol took advantage of CT geometrical scanning to reconstruct the human digital model, but the meshing accuracy of CT-based digitized human anatomical model was very low, it was difficult to ensure the accuracy of model solution results [26].…”

Electrospun nanofiber tubes with elastomagnetic properties for biomedical use

“…In particular, magnetically functionalized nanofibers (MFNs), namely polymer based fibers incorporating magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), are attracting increasing interest due to their potential use in micro-electro-mechanical devices, magnetic recording, ferrofluids, sensors, microwave absorption [7][8][9][10][11] and biomedical applications -i.e. bone repair [12][13][14], tissue engineering [15,16], magnetic hyperthermia [17], contrast agent and imaging techniques [18][19][20], controlled drug release [21] and drug delivery [22].…”