Fabrication of poly(lactide-co-glycolide) scaffold embedded spatially with hydroxyapatite particles on pore walls for bone tissue engineering

Poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) scaffolds embedded spatially with hydroxyapatite (HA) particles on the pore walls (PLGA/HA-S) were fabricated by using HA-coated paraffin spheres as porogens, which were prepared by Pickering emulsion. For comparisons, PLGA scaffolds loaded with same amount of HA particles (2%) in the matrix (PLGA/HA-M) and pure PLGA scaffolds were prepared by using pure paraffin spheres as porogens. Although the three types of scaffolds had same pore size (450-600 mu m) and similar porosity (90%-93%), the PLGA/HA-S showed the highest compression modulus. The embedment of the HA particles on the pore walls endow the PLGA/HA-S scaffold with a stronger ability of protein adsorption and mineralization as well as a larger mechanical strength against compression. In vitro culture of rat bone marrow stem cells revealed that cell morphology and proliferation ability were similar on all the scaffolds. However, the alkaline phosphatase activity was significantly improved for the cells cultured on the PLGA/HA-S scaffolds. Therefore, the method for fabricating scaffolds with spatially embedded nanoparticles provides a new way to obtain the bioactive scaffolds for tissue engineering. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.