Abstract
Bone tissue engineering offers versatile solutions to broaden clinical options for treating skeletal injuries. However, the variety of robust bone implants and substitutes remains largely uninvestigated. The advancements in hydrogel scaffolds composed of natural polymeric materials and osteoinductive microparticles have shown to be promising solutions in this field. In this study, gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) hydrogels containing bone meal powder (BP) particles were investigated for their osteoinductive capacity. As natural source of the bone mineral, we expect that BP improves the scaffold’s ability to induce mineralization. We characterized the physical properties of GelMA hydrogels containing various BP concentrations (0, 0.5, 5, and 50 mg/mL). The in vitro cellular studies revealed enhanced mechanical performance and the potential to promote the differentiation of pre-osteoblast cells. The in vivo studies demonstrated both promising biocompatibility and biodegradation properties. Overall, the biological and physical properties of this biomaterial is tunable based on BP concentration in GelMA scaffolds. The findings of this study offer a new composite scaffold for bone tissue engineering.
Highlights
Accepted: 28 October 2021Annually, 2.2 million bone grafts are performed worldwide for the treatment of nonunion fractures or critical-size bone defects, creating a $2.5 billion industry [1,2]
We demonstrate that the photocrosslinkable and osteoinductive gelatin methacrylate (GelMA)/bone meal powder (BP)
The combination of BP with gelatin methacrylate resulted sulted in the synthesis of a biologically active scaffold
Summary
Accepted: 28 October 2021Annually, 2.2 million bone grafts are performed worldwide for the treatment of nonunion fractures or critical-size bone defects, creating a $2.5 billion industry [1,2]. Autografts are frequently too expensive or are an inviable option They often require a secondary surgical procedure to obtain the grafting material. The considerable time between tissue extraction and implantation can lead to donor site morbidity Other alternatives such as allografts and distraction osteogenesis pose an increased risk of immunogenicity, disease transmission, and pin site infections. Current medical procedures to treat bone-related injuries and bone loss still present major clinical risks and are not readily available patient options. As a result, these medical concerns related to conventional surgical procedures and bone substitutes have motivated bone tissue engineering strategies to overcome these clinical challenges [2,3,4,5]
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