title: Compositional and in Vitro Evaluation of Nonwoven Type I Collagen/Poly-dl-lactic Acid Scaffolds for Bone Regeneration.
abstract: Poly-dl-lactic acid (PDLLA) was blended with type I collagen to attempt to overcome the instantaneous gelation of electrospun collagen scaffolds in biological environments. Scaffolds based on blends of type I collagen and PDLLA were investigated for material stability in cell culture conditions (37 °C; 5% CO2) in which post-electrospinning glutaraldehyde crosslinking was also applied. The resulting wet-stable webs were cultured with bone marrow stromal cells (HBMSC) for five weeks. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR) and biochemical assays were used to characterise the scaffolds and the consequent cell-scaffold constructs. To investigate any electrospinning-induced denaturation of collagen, identical PDLLA/collagen and PDLLA/gelatine blends were electrospun and their potential to promote osteogenic differentiation investigated. PDLLA/collagen blends with w/w ratios of 40/60, 60/40 and 80/20 resulted in satisfactory wet stabilities in a humid environment, although chemical crosslinking was essential to ensure long term material cell culture. Scaffolds of PDLLA/collagen at a 60:40 weight ratio provided the greatest stability over a five-week culture period. The PDLLA/collagen scaffolds promoted greater cell proliferation and osteogenic differentiation compared to HMBSCs seeded on the corresponding PDLLA/gelatine scaffolds, suggesting that any electrospinning-induced collagen denaturation did not affect material biofunctionality within 5 weeks in vitro.
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Research Group, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LU, UK. hflionell6318@hotmail.com.|State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China. hflionell6318@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Xiangchen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Nonwovens Research Group, School of Design, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. s.j.russell@leeds.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Russell
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Research Group, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LU, UK. x.b.yang@leeds.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Xuebin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Research Group, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LU, UK. s.j.russell@leeds.ac.uk.|Nonwovens Research Group, School of Design, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. s.j.russell@leeds.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tronci
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Research Group, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LU, UK. d.j.wood@leeds.ac.uk.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Wood
keywords: collagen; crosslinking; electrospinning; nonwoven; poly-dl-lactic acid