Experimental study of the effects of different materials of scaffold on cell development for multi-array microfluidic platform

Abstract

Scaffold, as one of the main aspects of tissue engineering, plays a role in mimicking the natural extracellular environment and offering a transitory template for the new tissue growth, especially in cartilage tissue regeneration. Hence, an appropriate biomaterial with optimized structure and characterization is essential to sustain the mechanical strength until complete cartilaginous tissue formation. With these in mind, this study aims to provide a holistic view on which material has potentially high ability to support chondrogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) on microfluidic platform. Using salt-leaching approach, biodegradable scaffolds were fabricated from polylactic acid (PLA), poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and poly(L-lactide-co- epsilon -caprolactone) (PLCL) with 85-90% of porosity and 150-200μm pore size. HMSCs were seeded on chitosan-treated scaffolds and conditioned to undergo chondrogenic differentiation on a multi-array microfluidic platform for 4 weeks. The cell viability, gene expression, cartilage tissue formation were compared within all types of scaffold. Noticeably, PLA and PLCL exhibited higher type II collagen gene expression as compared to PLGA. However, due to PLA mechanical limitation, PLCL shows to be of high potential to support chondrogenesis in microfluidic platform.