Development of double porous poly (ε-caprolactone)/chitosan polymer as tissue engineering scaffold

Pritam Das, Jean Christophe Remigy, Jean François Lahitte, Andries D. van der Meer, Barbara Garmy-Susini, Clémence Coetsier, Sandrine Desclaux, Patrice Bacchin*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)
54 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Polymer blend made from poly(ε - caprolactone)/chitosan (PCL/CHT) offers interesting opportunities for biological applications. The paper presents a new way to fabricate PCL/CHT double-porosity (macrovoids with interconnected microporosity) membrane materials from a chemical optimization of the solvent and non-solvent phases and from a modified phase inversion technique. By varying the PCL/CHT proportion, it is shown that it is possible to improve the chemical and physical properties of the CHT carbohydrate polymer. The PCL/CHT membranes are fully characterized in term of physico-chemical properties (ATR-FTIR, XRD and DSC) to understand the miscibility of the two-polymer blend. Morphological characterization by SEM shows that by increasing CHT wt% in the blend, the size of the macrovoids was increasing. Rapid enzymatic degradation of PCL from all the blend was found by using lipase (from P. cepacia). The mechanisms at the origin of the morphological structuration of the material is also discussed. To test the ability to operate these materials as small diameter vascular scaffolds, cell culture with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were carried out on the membrane and the results analyzed with laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM). Data suggest that the blend membrane with higher concentration of CHT polymer wt% have suitable properties that promote high number of cells on the surface by maintaining cellular cytoskeleton integrity within 3 days. The blend membrane with a double porous morphology could be potentially applicable in future for small diameter vascular graft application. The surface macrovoids (20–90 μm) could be useful for three-dimensional cellular adhesion and proliferation and interconnected microporous spongy network (7–20 μm) is expected to transfer essential nutrients, oxygen, growth factor between the macrovoids and the supernatant.

Original languageEnglish
Article number110257
JournalMaterials Science and Engineering C: Materials for Biological Applications
Volume107
Early online date14 Oct 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2020

Keywords

  • Cell culture
  • Chitosan
  • Double porous
  • Membrane
  • Poly (ε -caprolactone)
  • Biocompatibility
  • Poly (epsilon -caprolactone)
  • 22/2 OA procedure

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