Seamless route of self-assembly and 3D printing to fabricate hierarchical mesoporous bioactive glass scaffold for customized bone regeneration with enhanced efficacy

Abstract

Mesoporous bioactive glass (MBG) was one of the most promising bone regenerative materials for its well-acknowledged bioactivity, biodegradability, and osteoinductivity, as well as its potential for drug delivery. However, it remained a challenge to fabricate MBG scaffold with precisely controllable macro-structure and robust mechanical strength meanwhile to maintain uncompromised composition and mesoporosity. Herein, a fabricating route incorporating self-assembly and 3D printing (SAP) via acryloylating F127 (mesoporous template) was proposed and successfully realized directly printing MBG sol into hierarchical macro-/mesoporous SAP-MBG scaffold with compact and integral structure. Compared to traditional polyurethane (PU) templated MBG scaffold, SAP-MBG scaffold exhibited significantly enhanced mechanical strength meanwhile maintained non-composite component and mesoporous structure. SAP-MBG presented improved macropore interconnectivity and faster calcium dissolution, resulting in superior cellular penetration, in vitro osteogenic performances and in vivo bone regenerative efficacy in a critical-size rat cranial defect model. The SAP fabricating route represented an available approach to overcome the drawbacks of conventional manufacturing methods and realized individualized manufacturing of MBG scaffold. The synthetic design of this study might be extended to the fabricating process improvement of other mesoporous inorganic materials and shed light on future clinical translation of MBG scaffold in bone regeneration.