BME Seminar Series: Dr. Weijie Xu
Development of Laminated Fiber-Reinforced Nanocomposites for Bone Regeneration
Postdoctoral Fellow, Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine
Abstract
There have been numerous efforts to develop synthetic and/or natural tissue engineering scaffolds that are suitable for bone regeneration applications to replace autograft and allograft bones. Current biomaterials as a scaffold for bone regeneration are limited by the extent of degradation concurrent with mechanical strength and the extent of osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow stromal (BMS) cells. In this study, a novel laminated nanocomposite scaffold is fabricated, consisting of poly (L-lactide ethylene oxide fumarate) (PLEOF) hydrogel reinforced with poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) electrospun nanofibers and hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles. The laminated nanocomposites were fabricated by dry-hand lay up technique followed by compression molding and thermal crosslinking. The laminated nanocomposites were evaluated with respect to degradation, water uptake, mechanical strength, and the extent of osteogenic differentiation of BMS cells. The effect of laminated nanocomposites on osteogenic differentiation of BMS cells was determined in terms of cell number, ALPase activity and calcium content. Our results demonstrate that grafting ArgâGlyâAsp (RGD) peptide and hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles to a PLEOF hydrogel reinforced with PLLA nanofibers synergistically enhance osteogenic differentiation of BMS cells. In conclusion, the laminated nanocomposite with controllable degradation characteristics and robust mechanical properties is attractive as a synthetic bone-mimetic matrix for skeletal tissue regeneration.