Abstract
Development of artificial materials for the facilitation of cartilage regeneration remains an important challenge in orthopedic practice. Our study investigates the potential for neocartilage formation within a synthetic polyester scaffold based on the polymerization of high internal phase emulsions. The fabrication of polyHIPE polymer (PHP) was specifically tailored to produce a highly porous (85%) structure with the primary pore size in the range of 50–170 μm for cartilage tissue engineering. The resulting PHP scaffold was proven biocompatible with human articular chondrocytes and viable cells were observed within the materials as evaluated using the Live/Dead assay and histological analysis. Chondrocytes with round nuclei were organized into multicellular layers on the PHP surface and were observed to grow approximately 300 μm into the scaffold interior. The accumulation of collagen type 2 was detected using immunohistochemistry and chondrogenic specific genes were expressed with favorable collagen type 2 to 1 ratio. In addition, PHP samples are biodegradable and their baseline mechanical properties are similar to those of native cartilage, which enhance chondrocyte cell growth and proliferation.
Highlights
Prepared by the polymerization of high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs)[23]
Thiol-ene chemistry has been applied for the preparation of polyester type polyHIPE materials, which were successfully applied as scaffolds for fibroblast[37], keratinocyte[38] and osteoblast[39] cell growth
The polyester type of scaffold was prepared using emulsion templating with a high volume fraction of internal phase in order to achieve high porosity
Summary
The advantages of PHP compared to other foam-like synthetic materials are in its highly flexible topological characteristics enabling production of PHPs with different porosities (74–99%), pore sizes (1–300 μm), interconnecting pores (0.1–20 μm) and compressive moduli up to 60 MPa24–26. These characteristics can be adjusted to design a scaffold suitable for cartilage tissue engineering by altering the manufacturing procedure (e.g. optimized stirring rate, mixing time and temperature) while retaining its uniform structure, mechanical properties and biodegradability. Immunohistochemistry was performed and cartilage specific gene expression was analyzed in order to prove the materials suitability for cartilage growth
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