Authors: WonYoung Choi HyounEe Kim YoungHag Koh
Publish Date: 2012/10/18
Volume: 20, Issue: 4, Pages: 701-708
Abstract
We produced highly aligned porous polyεcaprolactone PCL/hydroxyapatite HA scaffolds by unidirectionally freezing PCL/HA solutions with various HA contents 0 5 10 and 20 wt in relation to the PCL polymer and evaluated their mechanical properties and in vitro biocompatibility to examine their potential applications in bone tissue engineering All the prepared scaffolds had a highly aligned porous structure in which the HA particles were uniformly dispersed in the PCL walls The elastic modulus of the PCL/HA scaffolds significantly increased from 012 ± 002 to 265 ± 005 MPa with increasing initial HA content from 0 to 20 wt whereas the pore size decreased from 92 ± 07 to 42 ± 08 μm In addition the PCL/HA scaffolds showed considerably enhanced in vitro cellular responses that were assessed in terms of cell attachment proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation
Keywords: