Abstract
To date, special interest has been paid to composite scaffolds based on polymers enriched with hydroxyapatite (HA). However, the role of HA containing different trace elements such as silicate in the structure of a polymer scaffold has not yet been fully explored. Here, we report the potential use of silicate-containing hydroxyapatite (SiHA) microparticles and microparticle aggregates in the predominant range from 2.23 to 12.40 µm in combination with polycaprolactone (PCL) as a hybrid scaffold with randomly oriented and well-aligned microfibers for regeneration of bone tissue. Chemical and mechanical properties of the developed 3D scaffolds were investigated with XRD, FTIR, EDX and tensile testing. Furthermore, the internal structure and surface morphology of the scaffolds were analyzed using synchrotron X-ray µCT and SEM. Upon culturing human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) on PCL-SiHA scaffolds, we found that both SiHA inclusion and microfiber orientation affected cell adhesion. The best hMSCs viability was revealed at 10 day for the PCL-SiHA scaffolds with well-aligned structure (~82%). It is expected that novel hybrid scaffolds of PCL will improve tissue ingrowth in vivo due to hydrophilic SiHA microparticles in combination with randomly oriented and well-aligned PCL microfibers, which mimic the structure of extracellular matrix of bone tissue.
Highlights
To date, special interest has been paid to composite scaffolds based on polymers enriched with hydroxyapatite (HA)
As the polymer solution used for the synthesis of randomly oriented and well-aligned structures was the same, the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and FTIR spectra showed no significant differences between the polymer structures
In the XRD pattern (Fig. 1a), the strongest reflections of semicrystalline PCL polymer were detected at 21.36° (110) and 23.68°, in good agreement with the literature data[28]
Summary
Special interest has been paid to composite scaffolds based on polymers enriched with hydroxyapatite (HA). Similar to the μCT results, SEM images illustrate the embedding of large fibers in the case of rPCL-SiHA and wPCL-SiHA samples (Fig. 6c,d).
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