Abstract
Barrier membranes that are used for guided tissue regeneration (GTR) therapy usually lack bioactivity and the capability to promote new bone tissue formation. However, the incorporation of an osteogenic agent into polymeric membranes seems to be the most assertive strategy to enhance their regenerative potential. Here, the manufacturing of composite electrospun membranes made of poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and particles of a novel bioactive glass composition (F18) is described. The membranes were mechanically and biologically tested with tensile strength tests and tissue culture with MG-63 osteoblast-like cell line, respectively. The PCL-F18 composite membranes demonstrated no increased cytotoxicity and an enhanced osteogenic potential when compared to pure PCL membranes. Moreover, the addition of the bioactive phase increased the membrane tensile strength. These preliminary results suggested that these new membranes can be a strong candidate for small bone injuries treatment by GTR technique.
Highlights
For over 20 years, porous membranes and scaffolds have been investigated as potential biomaterials for tissue regeneration applications [1], specially in bone tissue engineering where the cells require specific structures for support and proliferation
Since F18 bioactive glass has previously presented satisfactory results regarding degradation and bioactivity when incorporated into polymeric matrixes, such as PCL and PGS [24,31], this study focused on the characterisation of material citotoxicity and in vitro osteogenic potential of this bioactive glass when incorporated into nanostructured electrospun PCL
The size distribution was slightly altered, and diameters above 1 μm were more frequently observed in PCL-F18 membranes than in the non-composite membranes (Figure 1), this was observed since the F18 particle size distribution was bimodal, presenting particles closest to nanoscale that were possible trapped inside the PCL fibre and microscale particles that were randomly distribuited in the 3 of glass membrane
Summary
For over 20 years, porous membranes and scaffolds have been investigated as potential biomaterials for tissue regeneration applications [1], specially in bone tissue engineering where the cells require specific structures for support and proliferation. The ability to provide enhanced cellular support and proliferation in one structure is a challenging task, due to the need of achieving a proper balance between the material physicochemical properties and cell interaction [3,4]. To achieve this great cellular interaction, most recently developed composite membranes attempt to incorporate bioactivity into the structure in order to achieve rapid bone tissue ingrowth, mostly because the majority of biopolymers lack the ability to stimulate cellular activity [5,6,7,8]. PCL’s cell stimulation is poor, limiting its effectiveness in supporting
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