Abstract
Tissue engineering is a current trend in the regenerative medicine putting pressure on scientists to develop highly functional materials and methods for scaffolds’ preparation. In this paper, the calibrated filaments for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) based on plasticized poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/poly(d,l-lactide) 70/30 blend modified with tricalcium phosphate bioceramics were prepared. Two different plasticizers, Citroflex (n-Butyryl tri-n-hexyl citrate) and Syncroflex (oligomeric adipate ester), both used in the amount of 12 wt%, were compared. The printing parameters for these materials were optimized and the printability was evaluated by recently published warping test. The samples were studied with respect to their thermal and mechanical properties, followed by biological in vitro tests including proliferation, viability, and osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells. According to the results from differential scanning calorimetry and tensile measurements, the Citroflex-based plasticizer showed very good softening effect at the expense of worse printability and unsatisfactory performance during biological testing. On the other hand, the samples with Syncroflex demonstrated lower warping tendency compared to commercial polylactide filament with the warping coefficient one third lower. Moreover, the Syncroflex-based samples exhibited the non-cytotoxicity and promising biocompatibility.
Highlights
Skeletal damage is among the most common health issues, mostly originating from osteoporosis and traumatic fractures [1,2]
The study of thermal properties of prepared materials was performed by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) measurements
The addition of tricalcium phosphate (TCP) does not decrease the thermal stability of the blend, contrariwise the temperature of maximum degradation rate of both polymers is higher for both composite samples than for their unfilled reference as measured by Thermogravimetric analysis
Summary
Skeletal damage is among the most common health issues, mostly originating from osteoporosis and traumatic fractures [1,2]. A huge effort of scientists and commercial sector is applied to an investigation of new efficient and patient friendly treatment methods, such as tissue engineering. Tissue engineering (TE) is one of the modern concepts in regenerative medicine. This multi-disciplinary approach connects the knowledge from the fields of medicine and biology with material sciences. In TE, the scaffold as a supportive material, which may be seeded with cells and/or other supplementary. TE finds application when the extent of the bone injury excludes the self-healing by natural processes of ossification. It should offer superior performance to other methods of regenerative medicine exploited in such cases, as the bone autographs or allografts [3,4,5,6]
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