Silica aerogel improves the biocompatibility in a Poly-epsilon-caprolactone composite used as a tissue engineering scaffold
Date
2013-06-18Author
Ge, Jianhua
Li, Musen
Zhang, Qingguo
Yang, Christopher Z.
Wooley, Paul H.
Chen, Xiaofeng
Yang, Shang-You
Metadata
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Jianhua Ge, Musen Li, Qingguo Zhang, et al., “Silica Aerogel Improves the Biocompatibility in a Poly-epsilon-caprolactone Composite Used as a Tissue Engineering Scaffold,” International Journal of Polymer Science, vol. 2013, Article ID 402859, 7 pages, 2013. doi:10.1155/2013/402859
Abstract
Poly-epsilon-caprolactone (PCL) is a biodegradable polyester that has received great attentions in clinical and biomedical applications as sutures, drug delivery tool, and implantable scaffold material. Silica aerogel is a material composed of SiO2 that has excellent physical properties for use in drug release formulations and biomaterials for tissue engineering. The current study addresses a composite of silica aerogel with PCL as a potential bone scaffold material for bone tissue engineering. The biocompatibility evaluation of this composite indicates that the presence of silica aerogel effectively prevented any cytotoxic effects of the PCL membrane during extended tissue culture periods and improved the survival, attachment, and growth of 3T3 cells and primary mouse osteoblastic cells. The beneficial effect of silica aerogel may be due to neutralization of the acidic condition that develops during PCL degradation. Specifically, it appears that silica aerogel to PCL wt/wt ratio at 0.5:1 maintains a constant pH environment for up to 4 weeks and provides a better environment for cell growth.
Description
Copyright © 2013 Jianhua Ge et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.