Towards 4th generation biomaterials: a covalent hybrid polymer–ormoglass architecture

Abstract

Hybrid materials are being extensively investigated with the aim of mimicking the ECM microenvironment to develop effective solutions for bone tissue engineering. However, the common drawbacks of a hybrid material are the lack of interactions between the scaffold's constituents and the masking of its bioactive phase. Conventional hybrids often degrade in a non-homogeneous manner and the biological response is far from optimal. We have developed a novel material with strong interactions between constituents. The bioactive phase is directly exposed on its surface mimicking the structure of the ECM of bone. Here, polylactic acid electrospun fibers have been successfully and reproducibly coated with a bioactive organically modified glass (ormoglass, Si-Ca-P2 system) covalently. In comparison with the pure polymeric mats, the fibers obtained showed improved hydrophilicity and mechanical properties, bioactive ion release, exhibited a nanoroughness and enabled good cell adhesion and spreading after just one day of culture (rMSCs and rEPCs). The fibers were coated with different ormoglass compositions to tailor their surface properties (roughness, stiffness, and morphology) by modifying the experimental parameters. Knowing that cells modulate their behavior according to the exposed physical and chemical signals, the development of this instructive material is a valuable advance in the design of functional regenerative biomaterials.

Wound healing-promoting effects stimulated by extracellular calcium and calcium-releasing nanoparticles on dermal fibroblasts

“…Recently, novel bioactive nanostructured glasses have been designed, named calcium-phosphate organically modified glasses (CaP ormoglasses), that allow a more tunable behavior of the ion release, thus improving their instructive capacity. [27,28,29] In a previous study, this material showed a controlled calcium release of biologically relevant concentrations able to elicit an angiogenic effect both in vitro and in vivo. [30] With a better understanding of the necessary doses of extracellular calcium to improve the healing of wounds, CaP ormoglass nanoparticles might be promising candidates to be used as off-the-shelf biological-free bioactive system on chronic wounds.…”

Biomaterials for bone tissue engineering scaffolds: a review

“…Polymer composites have various excellent properties, such as biodegradability and mechanical properties. [122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131] Ceramic materials, especially HA, are the main inorganic constituents of natural bone. 19 Composite materials composed of ceramic materials and polymer materials have desirable properties for the manufacturing of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.…”

Instructive microenvironments in skin wound healing: Biomaterials as signal releasing platforms

“…Electrospinning is a feasible way to introduce active nanotopography in a 2.5D manner for skin regeneration, and is maybe the cheapest and most efficient technique to produce ECM-like scaffolds made of submicronic and nanometric polymeric fibers ( figure 4e, 4f and 4e) [190][191][192][193][194][195]. Part of the skin tissue is generally characterized and represented by a mesh of random collagen fibers that match with non-woven electrospun fibrous mats [178].…”

“…f1 and f2 are fluorescence microscopy images of human dermal fibroblasts seeded over collagen functionalized electrospun fibers (f1: after 4 h;f2 after 1 day -the scale bar represents 100 µm) adapted from [192] with permission. g1-g3 are images of the surface morphology of (g1) PLA electrospun fibers, (g2-g3) nanoparticle functionalized fibers (the scale is equal to 500 nm) adapted from [355] with permission. And f1 and f2 are stereomicrosope images of a melt electrospun PCL scaffold (scale bar represents 100 μm) adapted from [228] with permission.…”