Medical-grade polycaprolactone scaffolds made by melt electrospinning writing for oral bone regeneration – a pilot study in vitro

Abstract

BackgroundThe spectrum of indications for the use of membranes and scaffolds in the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery includes, amongst others, guided bone regeneration (GBR). Currently available membrane systems face certain disadvantages such as difficult clinical handling, inconsistent degradation, undirected cell growth and a lack of stability that often complicate their application. Therefore, new membranes which can overcome these issues are of great interest in this field.MethodsIn this pilot study, we investigated polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds intended to enhance oral wound healing by means of melt electrospinning writing (MEW), which allowed for three-dimensional (3D) printing of micron scale fibers and very exact fiber placement. A singular set of box-shaped scaffolds of different sizes consisting of medical-grade PCL was examined and the scaffolds’ morphology was evaluated via scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Each prototype sample with box sizes of 225 μm, 300 μm, 375 μm, 450 μm and 500 μm was assessed for cytotoxicity and cell growth by seeding each scaffold with human osteoblast-like cell line MG63.ResultsAll scaffolds demonstrated good cytocompatibility according to cell viability, protein concentration, and cell number. SEM analysis revealed an exact fiber placement of the MEW scaffolds and the growth of viable MG63 cells on them. For the examined box-shaped scaffolds with pore sizes between 225 μm and 500 μm, a preferred box size for initial osteoblast attachment could not be found.ConclusionsThese well-defined 3D scaffolds consisting of medical-grade materials optimized for cell attachment and cell growth hold the key to a promising new approach in GBR in oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Polycaprolactone as biomaterial for bone scaffolds: Review of literature

“…The fibers of 20 μm diameter were fabricated by spinning the PCL melt (melted at 73°C) at a pressure of 1.2 bars and an acceleration voltage of 6 KV. 30 Zaiss et al employed melt electrospinning technique to fabricate 3D scaffolds on structured and curved metallic collectors. The scaffolds made had an average fiber diameter of 15 μm and pore size of 250 μm-300 μm.…”

Polymers for Melt Electrowriting

“…Without question, the current gold standard polymer used for MEW is PCL. [11,16] In the literature, studies are performed with different designs including the typical box-structured scaffolds [16] or scaffolds for cell experiments [20][21][22] to more complicated designs like sinusoid structures with horizontal layer stacking, [23] tubes, [24,25] or a fiber-hydrogel composite with mechanical properties similar to that of a heart valve. [26]…”

“…As PCL is highlighted in several reviews on clinical translation of tissue engineering products, the transition from university-led research to application in the clinic is often negatively impacted by the need to repeat experiments with medical-grade polymers. In this instance, our understand- Measured as M w = 80 kDa [31] [ 11,16,12,20,[22][23][24]26, Sigma Aldrich Product number 440744 [46] M n = 80 × 10 3 [ 5,21,56,57] M n = 35 × 10 3 M w = 83 × 10 3 [ 13] M w = 45 kDa [58][59][60] M n = 45 × 10 3 [ 61] [ 5,13,21,[56][57][58][59][60][61] Capa 6400 M w ≈ 37 × 10 3 a) MFI = 40 b) [ 62,63] Capa 6430…”

Biomimicry in Bio-Manufacturing: Developments in Melt Electrospinning Writing Technology Towards Hybrid Biomanufacturing

“…The main limitation is due to the hydrophobic nature of polymers causing the hindrance of controlled cell-scaffold interaction and organization. The examples of post-processing of scaffolds by plasma or sodium hydroxide (NaOH) treatments have been reported to improve hydrophilicity, but the non-specific adsorption of proteins on the construct still restricts the controlled and hierarchical alignment and thus cellular behavior [101][102][103].…”