No abstract

The zonal organization of cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) constituents within articular cartilage is important for its biomechanical function in diarthroidal joints. Tissue-engineering strategies adopting porous three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds offer significant promise for the repair of articular cartilage defects, yet few approaches have accounted for the zonal structural organization as in native articular cartilage. In this study, the ability of anisotropic pore architectures to influence the zonal organization of chondrocytes and ECM components was investigated. Using a novel 3D fiber deposition (3DF) technique, we designed and produced 100% interconnecting scaffolds containing either homogeneously spaced pores (fiber spacing, 1 mm; pore size, about 680 microm in diameter) or pore-size gradients (fiber spacing, 0.5-2.0 mm; pore size range, about 200-1650 microm in diameter), but with similar overall porosity (about 80%) and volume fraction available for cell attachment and ECM formation. In vitro cell seeding showed that pore-size gradients promoted anisotropic cell distribution like that in the superficial, middle, and lower zones of immature bovine articular cartilage, irrespective of dynamic or static seeding methods. There was a direct correlation between zonal scaffold volume fraction and both DNA and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content. Prolonged tissue culture in vitro showed similar inhomogeneous distributions of zonal GAG and collagen type II accumulation but not of GAG:DNA content, and levels were an order of magnitude less than in native cartilage. In this model system, we illustrated how scaffold design and novel processing techniques can be used to develop anisotropic pore architectures for instructing zonal cell and tissue distribution in tissue-engineered cartilage constructs.

In this paper, nanograde osteoapatite-like rod crystals are made from wet synthesized calcium phosphate precipitates by hydrothermal treatment at 140°C under 0.3 MPa pressure for 2 h. The morphology, crystal structure, crystallinity and phase composition of these nanograde rod crystals are similar to those of thin apatite crystals in bony tissues of the body. This analogy provides an opportunity in the near future to build bone-like substitutes which consist of the nanograde rod crystals and special organic matrices and cells.

Nanograde calcium phosphate needle-like crystals are prepared from wet synthesized Ca-P precipitates by simple hydrothermal treatment at 140 °C and 0.3 M Pa for 2 h. The morphology of these crystals is observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The phase composition is'tested through X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and infrared spectroscopy (IR). It is found that the morphology of these crystals is related to the activity or fresh degree of the starting Ca-P precipitates and the added fluorine ions, but is not greatly influenced by the Ca/P ratio of the precipitates. These crystals with a Ca/P ratio between 1.67 and 1.5 show a poorly crystallized apatite structure at room temperature and a biphasic (HA + 13 -TCP) structure at 1100°C, corresponding to their Ca/P ratio. It is demonstrated that these nonstoichiometric apatite crystals contain lattice-bound water which could play an important role in the formation of bone apatite. The similarity in morphology and composition between these needle-like crystals and the apatite crystals in bone provides a possibility to make a. bone-like implant consisting of these needle-like crystals and collagen, etc.

Multiblock poly(ether-ester)s based on poly(ethylene glycol), butylene terephthalate, and butylene succinate units were synthesized by a two-step melt polycondensation reaction, with the aim of developing a new series of degradable polymers for controlled release applications. The copolymers were characterized with respect to their composition (NMR), thermal properties (DSC), and swelling. The main focus was on the degradation kinetics and release properties of the copolymers. The crystallinity and swelling could be tailored by the PEG segment length and the ratio of the building units. With increasing mol fraction succinate in the hard segment, the swelling increased. The in vitro degradation was found to occur by molecular weight decrease and mass loss. Substitution of the aromatic terephthalate units by aliphatic succinate units increased the degradation rate of the copolymers. Polymers with PEG segments of 1000 kg/mol showed a more pronounced degradation than copolymers containing shorter and longer PEG segments. Model proteins were successfully incorporated and released from the poly(ether-ester) films. Depending on the size of the protein, the release mechanism was based on diffusion of the protein and degradation of the matrix.