Preparation and Characterization of Integrated Condylar Biomimetic Scaffolds: A Pilot Study

Abstract

We constructed the bionic mandibular condyle scaffold composite with Chitosan, polycaprolactone and hydroxyapatite CS-PCL-HA and investigated the feasibility in condylar tissue engineering applications. The condyle mold was fabricated by resin materials with rapid prototyping methods and the bionic mandibular condyle scaffold was constructed by solution casting-ice drain. The microstructure, porosity, infrared and Xray diffraction of the condyle scaffold were studied. The exterior of scaffold was white and hard as condyle, consisting of cartilage scaffold and subchondral bone scaffold. The scanning electron microscopy showed that the scaffold composite were highly bionic in three-dimensional structures with 70-85 % porosity and 40-200 m aperture, which can be controlled by the size and the number of ice particles. Infrared spectrum showed that with the reduction of HA content, the peak strength also decreased, while X-ray diffraction results demonstrated that with the increase of HA content, the diffraction intensity reduced relatively. The compressive strain and bending strain were increased with the growing of the HA content. In conclusion, the special design of scaffolds has good performance of synthetic materials, which is expected to be applied in autologous tissue engineering as condyle scaffold material.

Tissue Engineering for the Temporomandibular Joint

“…Concerning the bony tissue of the condyle, synthetic scaffolds offer many advantages such as high mechanical integrity, porosity, and the capacity for the incorporation of growth factors. Materials used for bioengineered condyles include polymers such as PLGA [164] , PGA [169] , PCL [174] PLA [169] and mineral based scaffolds such as hydroxyapatite (HA) [172] . In general, polymeric structures are easy to mold, flexible, potentially bioabsorbable, and can be integrated and coated with other materials, whereas, mineral-based scaffolds provide high mechanical strength and are structurally similar to native bone.…”

“…In comparison to synthetic materials, natural materials offer the distinct advantage of being naturally osteoinductive. Natural materials that have been explored for condylar bone replacement include coral [144] , chitosan [174] , and collagen [173] . Natural coral (porosity of 150-220 μm) was sculpted to resemble a condyle with a dental bur, and BMSCs were seeded at 20 million cells per construct.…”

Analysis of Demineralized Mammalian Bone Tissue by Fourier Transform Infrared Microscopy

“…Thus, infrared spectroscopy of proteins is a powerful tool for analyzing the three dimensional conformation of proteins (particularly their secondary structure) in studies involving protein folding, bioactivity, and function [11][12][13][14] . It is also used for analysis of apatite which is one of components of teeth 15) . In addition, infrared spectroscopy allows for observation of molecular vibrations.…”