Particle-collision and porogen-leaching technique to fabricate polymeric porous scaffolds with microscale roughness of interior surfaces

Abstract

A facile technique is herein reported to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) polymeric porous scaffolds with interior surfaces of a topographic microstructure favorable for cell adhesion. As demonstration, a well-known biodegradable polymer poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) was employed as matrix. Under the porogen-leaching strategy, the large and soft porogens of paraffin were modified by colliding with small and hard salt particles, which generated micropits on the surfaces of paraffin spheres. The eventual PLGA scaffolds after leaching the modified porogens had thus interior surfaces of microscale roughness imprinted by those micropits. The microrough scaffolds were confirmed to benefit adhesion of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) of rats and meanwhile not to hamper the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of the cells. The insight and technique might be helpful for biomaterial designing in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.