Abstract
The poor bonding strength between biopolymer and bioceramic has remained an unsolved issue. In this study, graphene oxide (GO) was introduced as an interface phase to improve the interfacial bonding between polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and hydroxyapatite (HAP) for tissue engineering scaffolds. On the one hand, the conjugated structure of GO could form strong π-π stacking interaction with the benzene rings in PEEK. On the other hand, GO with a negatively charge resulting from oxygen functional groups could adsorb the positively charged calcium atoms (C sites) of HAP. Consequently, the dispersibility and compatibility of HAP in the PEEK matrix increased with increasing GO content up to 1 wt%. At this time, the compressive strength and modulus of scaffolds increased by 79.45% and 42.07%, respectively. Furthermore, the PEEK-HAP with GO (PEEK-HAP/GO) scaffolds possessed the ability to induce formation of bone-like apatite. And they could support cellular adhesion, proliferation as well as osteogenic differentiation. More importantly, in vivo bone defect repair experiments showed that new bone formed throughout the scaffolds at 60 days after implantation. All these results suggested that the PEEK-HAP/GO scaffolds have a promising potential for bone tissue engineering application.
Highlights
Presence of large amounts of oxygen functional groups on their surface and edges[23,24,25]
The surface morphologies of the PEEK-HAP/GO scaffolds with different GO content are presented in Fig. 1, and the PEEK-HAP scaffolds were used as control
Similar results have been published by others about biopolymer-bioceramic based composites, which were explained by the poor compatibility due to the great differences in the physical and chemical properties between biopolymer and bioceramic, leading to a low interfacial contact with the PEEK matrix42
Summary
Presence of large amounts of oxygen functional groups (such as carboxylic acids as well as phenolic hydroxyls) on their surface and edges[23,24,25]. Our previous work had already demonstrated that GO could form strong interface bonding with positively charged bioceramic. Few study has used GO as interface phase to absorb organic chemicals and inorganic particles simultaneously. Rich surface oxygen functional groups (carboxyl as well as hydroxyl groups) imbue it with good hydrophilicity and surface activity that are benefit for cellular adhesion and proliferation, and apatite forming ability[38,39,40,41]. Considering these issues, HAP was incorporated into PEEK to improve the bioactivity and bone bonding ability. The bioactivity, cytocompatibility and biocompatibility were investigated via in vitro and in vivo experiments
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