Effect of incorporation of nanoscale bioactive glass and hydroxyapatite in PCL/chitosan nanofibers for bone and periodontal tissue engineering.

A biomimetic scaffold which can very closely mimic the extracellular matrix of the bone was fabricated by incorporating nano-bioceramic particles such as nano bioglass (nBG) and nano hydroxyapatite (nHAp) within electrospun nanofibrous scaffold. A comparative study between nHAp incorporated poly(caprolactone) (PCL)-chitosan (CS) and nBG incorporated PCL-CS nanofibrous scaffolds was carried out and their feasibility in tissue engineering was investigated. All the samples were optimized to obtain fibers of similar diameter from 100-200 nm for the ease of comparison between the samples. Protein adsorption studies showed that PCL-CS incorporated with 3 wt% nHAp and 3 wt% nBG adsorbed more proteins on their surface than other samples. Cell attachment and proliferation studies using human periodontal ligament fibroblast cells (hPLFs) and osteoblast like cells (MG-63 cell lines) showed that nBG incorporated samples are slightly superior to nHAp incorporated counterparts. Cell viability test using alamar blue assay and live/dead staining confirms that the scaffolds are cytocompatible. ALP activity confirmed the osteoblastic behavior of hPDLFs. Also the presence of nHAp and nBG enhanced the ALP activity of hPDLF on the PCH3 and PCB3 scaffolds. These studies indicate that nBG incorporated electrospun scaffolds are comparatively better candidates for orthopedic and periodontal tissue engineering applications.