Development and improvement of dual-leached polyester porous scaffolds for bone tissue engineering

Abstract

Sodium chloride and polyethylene glycol (PEG) were used as water-soluble porogens for the formation of porous polycaprolactone (PCL) and their blends scaffolds. The main purpose was to prepare and evaluate in vitro efficacy of highly interconnected, three -dimensional, porous polymeric scaffolds, as obtained from the combined solvent casting and particulate -polymer leaching techniques. Evidently, the use of PEG as the secondary porogen not only improved the interconnectivity of the pore structures but also resulted in the scaffolds that exhibited much better support for the prolife ration and differentiation of the cultured bone cells. Although increased porosity and interconnected network facilitate bone ingrowth, the result is a reduction in mechanical properties of scaffold. For these reason, the another purpose of this study was to improve the mechanical properties of the dual-leached PCL scaffold by the addition of hydroxyapatite and improve the hydrophilicity of dual-leached scaffolds by alkaline treatment. The potential for PCL-PHB, PCL- PHBV, PCL -PHB/HA, and PCL-PHBV/HA dual-leached scaffolds use as bone scaffolding materials were also evaluated in vitro mouse calvaria-derived preosteoblastic cells (MC3T3-E1). The results indicate that NaOH treated PCL/HA dual-leached scaffold possesses improvement in mechanical properties and hydrophilicity, and PCL-PHB, PCL-PHBV, PCL-PHB/HA, and PCL-PHBV/HA dual-leached scaffolds possess improvement in mechanical properties, degradation. All dual-leached scaffolds show their ability to support MC3T3 -E1 cell attachment, proliferation, and mineralization for used as bone scaffolding materials.