Controllable promotion of chondrocyte adhesion and growth on PVA hydrogels by controlled release of TGF-β1 from porous PLGA microspheres

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels have been candidate materials for cartilage tissue engineering. However, the cell non-adhesive nature of PVA hydrogels has been a limit. In this paper, the cell adhesion and growth on PVA hydrogels were promoted by compositing with transform growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) loaded porous poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microspheres. The porous microspheres were fabricated by a modified double emulsion method with bovine serum albumin (BSA) as porogen. The average pore size of microspheres was manipulated by changing the BSA/PLGA ratio. Such controllable porous structures effectively influenced the encapsulation efficiency (E-encaps) and release profile of TGF-beta 1. By compositing PVA hydrogels with such TGF-beta 1-loaded PLGA microspheres, chondrocyte adhesion and proliferation were significantly promoted in a controllable manner, as confirmed by fluorescent imaging and quantitative CCK-8 assay. That is, the chondrocyte proliferation was favored by using PLGA microspheres with high E-encaps of TGF-beta 1 or by increasing the PLGA microsphere content in the hydrogels. These results demonstrated a facile method to improve the cell adhesion and growth on the intrinsically cell non-adhesive PVA hydrogels, which may find applications in cartilage substitution. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.