AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/ijb.4645
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Design, fabrication, and biocompatibility of 3D-printed poly(LLA-ran-PDO-ran-GA)/poly (D-lactide) composite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering

Tiantang Fan1 Xiao Meng5 Ruishen Zhuge3 Jinwen Qin4 Yutong Wang1 Chunyu Zhang1 Yiqiao Yin1 Jianru Liu3* Tianyun Fan2* Dongya Liu1*
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1 College of Medical Engineering and the Key Laboratory for Medical Functional Nanomaterials, Jining Medical University, Jining, Shandong, China
2 Dongguan Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital, Postdoctoral Innovation Practice Base of Southern Medical University, Dongguan, Guangdong, China
3 Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology & National Center for Stomatology & National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases & National Engineering Research Center of Oral Biomaterials and Digital Medical Devices, Beijing, China
4 The Institute for Translational Nanomedicine, Shanghai East Hospital, the Institute for Biomedical Engineering & Nano Science, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
5 School of Energy, Power, and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China
Submitted: 23 August 2024 | Accepted: 8 October 2024 | Published: 8 October 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The long-term nonunion of bone defects remains a significant challenge in the field of orthopedics. Poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA), widely used in bone tissue engineering, offers hope for addressing this issue. In our previous study, we aimed to enhance the poor toughness and slow degradation of PLLA by introducing flexible p-dioxanone (PDO) and highly reactive glycolic acid units into the molecular chain of PLLA to prepare PLLA-ran-PDO-ran-GA (PLPG) scaffolds, effectively mitigating the limitations of PLLA. However, the crystallization capacity of PLPG copolymers was weakened, resulting in insufficient mechanical properties. Therefore, in this study, poly(D-lactic acid) (PDLA) was introduced into PLPG via solution blending to enhance its crystallization properties through the in situ generation of stereocomplex poly(lactic acid) (SC-PLA). Subsequently, PLPG/PDLA scaffolds were prepared using 3D printing technology. The results demonstrated that PLPG/PDLA composites exhibited good machinability, while the scaffolds exhibited satisfactory mechanical and degradation properties. Additionally, cell experiments indicated that PLPG/PDLA scaffolds are biocompatible, supporting cell growth and proliferation on their surfaces. We believe that PLPG/PDLA scaffolds have significant potential for application in bone tissue engineering, effectively addressing the issue of long-term non-healing bone defects.

Keywords
3D bioprinting
Poly(L-lactide acid)
Poly(D-lactide acid)
Scaffolds
Tissue engineering
Funding
This work was supported by the Research Fund for Academician Lin He New Medicine, Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (no. ZR2021QC205), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China- Young Scientists Fund (No. 81600867).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing