Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, the gelatin scaffold for tissue engineering has many disadvantages, such as low stiffness and strength, bad biocompatibility and uncontrollable degradation rate.
OBJECTIVE: To improve the properties of gelatin scaffold by adding calcium polyphosphate fibers and hydroxyapatite.
METHODS: Calcium polyphosphate fiber and hydroxyapatite were taken as reinforced materials and gelatin was used as matrix materials, besides, glutaric dialdehyde was used as the cross linker in a ratio of 50/10/40. The composite scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering were prepared by solvent-casting and particulate-leaching technique, and then their physical and mechanical properties as well as microstructure were tested.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The hydroxyapatite powder prepared by sol-gel method had a low crystallization degree, but it had a high crystallization degree after sintered at 900 ℃ for 0.5 hour. The scaffolds with porosity of 65%-90% possessed three-dimensional, interconnecting, micro-hole network structure, and can meet the porosity require of cartilage tissue engineering for scaffolds. The effect of glutaraldehyde cross-linking and improvement of calcium polyphosphate fiber can overcome the disadvantage of easily shrinking of gelatin when the porous scaffold scaffolds are prepared, and provide promise to prepare a high-porosity scaffold material which has three-dimensional and interconnection structure.