Development of Chitosan/Silk Fibroin based scaffold for bone tissue engineering application

Abstract

Bone tissue engineering has been emerged as an alternative tool to induce bone regeneration through combination of biomaterials and their composites along with the suitable cells and growth factors. In tissue engineering, chitosan(CH)/silk fibroin(SF)blend scaffolds has been proven to be an ideal biomaterial possessingdesired properties. In the present research work,it is aimed to develop a novel 3D porous scaffolds from chitosan/silk fibroin and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) by freeze drying method, Pure CH/SF and CH/SF/CMC blends were prepared with different ratios of CH,SF and CMC and used to fabricate porous scaffolds. Among the various compositions, CH/SF/CMC (80:20:1%) blend was found to be the most favorable scaffold having somesuperior properties.The scaffol exhibited open pore microstructure as revealed by E SEM images with pore size(140±25μm) and porosity(78.1±0.6%).The scaffold was assessed for functional, structural, swelling, biodegradation, bioactivity and mechanical properties. Furthermore, nano-bioglass (≤120nm) was synthesized by sol gel method and incorporated in toCS/SF/CMC thereby CH/SF/CMC/nBG composite scaffolds with different composition were developed. A mong the various composite blends, CH/SF/CMC/nBG (80:20:1%:10%) showed better result with controlled pore size, biodegradation, biomineralization and increased compressive strength. Hence,CH/SF/CMC/nBG (80:20:1%:10%) composite scaffold is a potential artificial extra cellular matrix with improved bioactivity and further expected to possess superiorosteogenic and angiogenic property.