Laboratory injection molder for the fabrication of polymeric porous poly-epsilon-caprolactone scaffolds for preliminary mesenchymal stem cells tissue engineering applications

Abstract

This study presents a simple and rapid fabrication technique involving injection molding and particle leaching\ud (IM/PL) to fabricate the porous scaffold for tissue engineering applications. Sodium Chloride (NaCl) and Sucrose\ud are separately mixed with the poly-epsilon-caprolactone (PCL) granules using a screwed thermo-regulated extruder,\ud then the biocompatible scaffolds are fabricated through injection molding. The micro/nano-structure of\ud the samples and their different grade of porosity were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and mercury\ud intrusion porosimetry. Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells are chosen for cell culture and\ud Hoechst 33342 staining was used to verify the biocompatibility of the polymeric porous surfaces. We concluded\ud that, by using the same fast solvent free injection/leaching process, the use of Sucrose as porogen, instead of NaCl,\ud allowed the obtainment of biocompatible scaffoldswith a higher grade of porosity with suitable cell adhesion capacity\ud for tissue engineering purpose

Overcoming the Limits of Flash Nanoprecipitation: Effective Loading of Hydrophilic Drug into Polymeric Nanoparticles with Controlled Structure

“…The aim of this study is to determine whether, and under which conditions, the FNP technique may be used to encapsulate a hydrophilic substance; for this reason, caffeine was selected as the model drug to be incorporated in poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL), a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer, widely applied in tissue engineering, implantable devices, cell cultures, and drug delivery [45,46,47]. Caffeine was either solubilized in acetone, the polymer solvent, or in water, the anti-solvent, prior to being injected into a CIJM to produce nanoparticles.…”

Poly(ε-caprolactone)/Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) Blend from Fused Deposition Modeling as Potential Cartilage Scaffolds

“…Many techniques are utilized to fabricate the scaffolds in tissue engineering. The solvent-free techniques, for example, injection [19], extrusion [20], thermoforming [21], selective laser sintering [22][23][24], and fused deposition modeling (FDM) [7,9,25,26], have drawn attention in the field of scaffolding. FDM can produce three-dimensional objects directly from the filaments of melted polymer or resin assisted by the computer-aided design program.…”

Two-photon polymerization nanolithography technology for fabrication of stimulus-responsive micro/nano-structures for biomedical applications

“…The native microenvironments where cells reside, namely, extracellular matrix (ECM), possess complex networks from the macroscale to nanoscale which can regulate cell behavior and tissue differentiation [30][31][32]. Although some scaffolds with micro/nano-features can be manufactured by some approaches, such as solvent casting and particle leaching [33], electrospinning [34] and emulsion freeze-drying [35], micro/nano-features generated by the aforementioned technologies cannot be controlled in terms of size and shape for mimicking the natural microenvironments. Therefore, how structural features affect the interaction between cells and scaffolds have been hindered by limitations of the conventional methods.…”