Development of Extracellular matrix-nano Hydroxyapatite composite scaffold for Bone tissue engineering

Abstract

Adipose tissue has an extracellular matrix (ECM) which is enriched in the fibrillar protein collagen, elastin, basement membrane protein laminin, Glycosaminoglycans, and proteoglycans. All the components have very important role in tissue development and function, hence applicable in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. We decellularised the adipose tissue using the combination of 1) Physical methods such as blending and freeze-thawing and the 2) chemical methods such as SDS. We found that the subsequent freeze dried decellularized adipose tissue results in highly porous scaffold of average pore size 257µm. We characterized the scaffold and found that it is suitable for soft tissue engineering applications but it is not suitable for bone tissue engineering because of its poor mechanical strength. To increase the mechanical strength, we prepared the composite of hydroxyapatite nanoparticle and ECM and characterized by FTIR and XRD. We prepared the Hydroxyapatite nanoparticle by wet chemical method and ECM-nano hydroxyapatite composite scaffold by the suspension method. The scaffolds fabricated possess a porous structure with an average pore size of 170µm and with an improved mechanical strength which is suitable for bone tissue engineering.