Ternary composite scaffolds with tailorable degradation rate and highly improved colonization by human bone marrow stromal cells

Abstract

Poly(ε-caprolactone), PCL, is of great interest for fabrication of biodegradable scaffolds due to its high compatibility with various manufacturing techniques, especially Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). However, slow degradation and low strength make application of PCL limited only to longer-term bioresorbable and non-load bearing implants. To overcome latter drawbacks, ternary PCL-based composite fibrous scaffolds consisting of 70-95 wt % PCL, 5 wt % Tricalcium Phosphate (TCP) and 0-25 wt % poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) were fabricated using FDM. In the present study, the effect of composition of the scaffolds on their mechanical properties, degradation kinetics, and surface properties (wettability, surface energy, and roughness) was investigated and correlated with response of human bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (HBMC). The presence of PLGA increased degradation kinetics, surface roughness and significantly improved scaffold colonization. Of the evaluated surface properties only the wettability was correlated with the surface area colonized by HBMC. This study demonstrates that introduction of PLGA into PCL-TCP binary composite could largely abolish the disadvantages of the PCL matrix and improve biocompatibility by increasing wettability and polar interactions rather than surface roughness. Additionally, we showed great potential of multicellular spheroids as a sensitive in vitro tool for detection of differences in chemistry of 3D scaffolds.

Post Processing and Biological Evaluation of the Titanium Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

“…The ALP activity was conversely correlated to total protein concentration, which suggests that differentiation was more advanced on scaffolds which supported cell proliferation to lesser extent. A similar trend was observed in the case of differentiation of MSCs within 3D polymeric and composite scaffolds produced by additive manufacturing [50,51]. It is worth noting that the TPC confirms the microscopic observations of the samples: the scaffolds with the smallest pores yielded the highest cell density and TPC.…”

Investigation of mechanical properties of porous composite scaffolds with tailorable degradation kinetics after in vitro degradation using digital image correlation

“…To tune degradation rate without deterioration of initial mechanical properties of PCL, various concentrations of PLGA were attempted. The obtained ternary composite materials exhibited significantly increased tensile properties and degradation kinetics . Additionally, we observed significantly improved colonization by human mesenchymal stem cells, which make the ternary composites promising materials for fabrication of 3D scaffolds.…”

“…Neat PCL, binary composite PCL–TCP and ternary composites containing PCL, TCP, and PLGA in quantities given in Table were prepared by means of a solvent casting technique as previously described . Briefly, polymers were dissolved in methylene chloride and TCP was dispersed in the polymer solution.…”

Three-dimensional printed polycaprolactone-based scaffolds provide an advantageous environment for osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells

“…However, there are some studies performed in order to gain better control on this process. For example, it was shown that the addition of poly(lactic‐co‐glycolic acid) as the third phase in the PCL‐based composites may increase the degradation rate (Idaszek et al ., ). At the same time TCP did not significantly influence the degradation rate of the scaffold (Idaszek et al ., ).…”