Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, National Formosa University, Yunlin County, Taiwan.
Biomed Microdevices. 2013 Apr;15(2):369-79. doi: 10.1007/s10544-013-9740-5.
Bone tissue engineering is an emerging approach to provide viable substitutes for bone regeneration. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) is a good candidate of bone scaffold because of several advantages such as hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, and intrinsic resistance to protein adsorption and cell adhesion. However, its low compressive strength limits application for bone regeneration. Poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), a hydrophobic nonionic polymer, is adopted to enhance the compressive strength of PEG alone.We aimed to investigate the in-vitro response of osteoblast-like cells cultured with porous scaffolds of triblock PEG-PCL-PEG copolymer fabricated by an air pressure-aided deposition system. A desktop air pressure-aided deposition system that involves melting and plotting PEG-PCL-PEG was used to fabricate three-dimensional scaffolds having rectangular pores. The experimental results showed that PEG-PCL-PEG with a molecular weight of 25,000 can be melted and stably deposited through a heating nozzle at an air pressure of 0.3 MPa and no crack occurs after it solidifies. The scaffolds with pre-determined pore size of 400× 420 μm and a porosity of 79 % were fabricated, and their average compressive strength was found to be 18.2 MPa. Osteoblast-like cells, MC3T3-E1, were seeded on fabricated scaffolds to investigate the in-vitro response of cells including toxicity and cellular locomotion. In a culture period of 28 days, the neutral-red stained osteoblasts were found to well distributed in the interior of the scaffold. Furthermore, the cellular attachment and movement in the first 10 h of cell culture were observed with time-lapse microscopy indicating that the porous PEG-PCL-PEG scaffolds fabricated by air pressure-aided deposition system is non-toxicity for osteoblast-like cells.
骨组织工程是一种提供骨再生可行替代品的新兴方法。聚乙二醇（PEG）因其亲水性、生物相容性和对蛋白质吸附和细胞黏附的固有抵抗力等优点，是一种很好的骨支架候选材料。然而，其抗压强度低限制了其在骨再生中的应用。聚己内酯（PCL），一种疏水性非离子聚合物，被采用来增强 PEG 单独的抗压强度。我们旨在研究通过气压辅助沉积系统制备的三嵌段 PEG-PCL-PEG 共聚物多孔支架培养的成骨样细胞的体外反应。使用涉及 PEG-PCL-PEG 熔融和绘图的台式气压辅助沉积系统来制造具有矩形孔的三维支架。实验结果表明，分子量为 25000 的 PEG-PCL-PEG 可以在 0.3 MPa 的气压下通过加热喷嘴熔融并稳定沉积，并且在凝固后不会出现裂纹。制造出具有预定孔径为 400×420μm 和孔隙率为 79%的支架，其平均抗压强度为 18.2MPa。将成骨样细胞 MC3T3-E1 接种到制造的支架上，以研究细胞的体外反应，包括毒性和细胞迁移。在 28 天的培养期内，发现中性红染色的成骨细胞均匀分布在支架内部。此外，通过延时显微镜观察到细胞培养前 10 小时内细胞的附着和运动，表明通过气压辅助沉积系统制造的多孔 PEG-PCL-PEG 支架对成骨样细胞无毒。
