Investigations of Graphene and Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Enhanced Polycaprolactone 3D Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering.

Weiguang Wang,Wei-Hung Chiang,Jun-Xiang Chen,Yanhao Hou,Paulo Bartolo

doi:10.3390/nano11040929

Abstract

Scaffolds play a key role in tissue engineering applications. In the case of bone tissue engineering, scaffolds are expected to provide both sufficient mechanical properties to withstand the physiological loads, and appropriate bioactivity to stimulate cell growth. In order to further enhance cell–cell signaling and cell–material interaction, electro-active scaffolds have been developed based on the use of electrically conductive biomaterials or blending electrically conductive fillers to non-conductive biomaterials. Graphene has been widely used as functioning filler for the fabrication of electro-active bone tissue engineering scaffolds, due to its high electrical conductivity and potential to enhance both mechanical and biological properties. Nitrogen-doped graphene, a unique form of graphene-derived nanomaterials, presents significantly higher electrical conductivity than pristine graphene, and better surface hydrophilicity while maintaining a similar mechanical property. This paper investigates the synthesis and use of high-performance nitrogen-doped graphene as a functional filler of poly(ɛ-caprolactone) (PCL) scaffolds enabling to develop the next generation of electro-active scaffolds. Compared to PCL scaffolds and PCL/graphene scaffolds, these novel scaffolds present improved in vitro biological performance.

Highlights

Biomanufacturing is a relatively new research domain focusing on the use of additive manufacturing technologies, biomaterials, cells, and biomolecular signals to produce constructs for tissue engineering applications
It suggests that doping of structures may of generate of nitrogen-doped graphene (N-G) are larger than G and raw graphite, suggesting that the electronic structure the more electroactive sites in produced bone tissue engineering scaffolds
It suggests that doping of N atoms into G structures may generate the sheet resistance of N-G is about 13 times lower than G, suggesting that the electrical more electroactive sites in produced 3D bone tissue engineering scaffolds

Summary

Introduction

Biomanufacturing is a relatively new research domain focusing on the use of additive manufacturing technologies, biomaterials, cells, and biomolecular signals to produce constructs for tissue engineering applications These tissue constructs (scaffolds) play an important role for cell attachment, proliferation, and differentiation, leading to new tissue formation. In order to mimic the native bone structure and properties, bioceramics and bioglasses have been widely used due to their biocompatibility, bioactivity, and high mechanical strength [4]. They may present limited biodegradability, are brittle, and difficult to process [5]. Polymeric materials are blended with bioceramics, bioglasses or stimuli-responsive biomaterials such as electrical conductive carbon nanomaterials or magnetic nanoparticles, to improve physical and biological properties [6,7,8,9,10]

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Results

Conclusion