3D Printed porous tissue engineering scaffolds with the self-folding ability and controlled release of growth factor
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Research Letter
3D Printed porous tissue engineering scaffolds with the self-folding ability and controlled release of growth factor Jiahui Lai, Junzhi Li, and Min Wang, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong Address all correspondence to Min Wang at [email protected] (Received 12 June 2020; accepted 14 August 2020)
Abstract This study investigated a new strategy for fabricating porous scaffolds with the self-folding ability and controlled release of growth factors (GFs) via 3D printing. The scaffolds were a bilayer structure comprising a poly(D,L-lactide-co-trimethylene carbonate) scaffold for providing the shape morphing ability and a gelatin methacrylate scaffold for encapsulating and delivering GF. The structure, shape morphing behavior, GF release, and its effect on stem cell behavior were studied for new scaffolds. The results suggest that these scaffolds have great potential for regenerating tissues such as blood vessels. This work also contributes to developments of 3D printing in tissue engineering.
Introduction Scaffold-based tissue engineering provides a major approach for regenerating human body tissues in which bioactive biomolecules can be loaded into the scaffold matrix or onto the surface of scaffold struts for enhancing tissue regeneration.[1] Porous scaffolds mimicking the natural extracellular matrix of human body tissues can serve well as a substrate for cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation and facilitate new tissue formation in vivo. The architecture (pore size, shape, interconnectivity, porosity, etc.) and properties (physical, biological, and mechanical) of scaffolds should be carefully controlled to best regenerate the target tissue.[2] 3D printing is a manufacturing platform developed since 1986 when the first 3D printing technology — stereolithography (SLA) — was patented.[3] It is an additive manufacturing process where materials are deposited in a layer-by-layer manner to construct 3D objects. It presents a very attractive manufacturing platform and has been applied in many and diverse areas such as electronic devices, energy, food industry, and art creation.[4] The powerful technologies of 3D printing have also been employed in the tissue engineering field for fabricating various porous scaffolds through precisely placing biomaterials, biomolecules or even living cells in the scaffolds.[5,6] At present, although 3D printing has been used to fabricate tubular hollow structures for tissue engineering applications, it still has difficulties to produce tubular porous hollow scaffolds with a good control over their diameters. Currently, there are mainly three approaches to fabricate tubular hollow structures: indirect printing by using a sacrificial material, direct printing structures with interconnected channels, and direct printing tubular hollow structures using coaxial nozzles. However, none of these methods can simultaneously control accurately the diameter of fabricated tubular hollow structures
and achieve desired porosit
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