Tailoring the Microarchitectures of 3D Printed Bone-like Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Applications.

Material extrusion (MEX), commonly referred to as fused deposition modeling (FDM) or fused filament fabrication (FFF), is a versatile and cost-effective technique to fabricate suitable scaffolds for tissue engineering. Driven by a computer-aided design input, specific patterns can be easily collected in an extremely reproducible and repeatable process. Referring to possible skeletal affections, 3D-printed scaffolds can support tissue regeneration of large bone defects with complex geometries, an open major clinical challenge. In this study, polylactic acid scaffolds were printed resembling trabecular bone microarchitecture in order to deal with morphologically biomimetic features to potentially enhance the biological outcome. Three models with different pore sizes (i.e., 500, 600, and 700 µm) were prepared and evaluated by means of micro-computed tomography. The biological assessment was carried out seeding SAOS-2 cells, a bone-like cell model, on the scaffolds, which showed excellent biocompatibility, bioactivity, and osteoinductivity. The model with larger pores, characterized by improved osteoconductive properties and protein adsorption rate, was further investigated as a potential platform for bone-tissue engineering, evaluating the paracrine activity of human mesenchymal stem cells. The reported findings demonstrate that the designed microarchitecture, better mimicking the natural bone extracellular matrix, favors a greater bioactivity and can be thus regarded as an interesting option for bone-tissue engineering.

Biological Response to Bioinspired Microporous 3D-Printed Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering.

The scaffold is a key element in the field of tissue engineering, especially when large defects or substitutions of pathological tissues or organs need to be clinically addressed. The expected outcome is strongly dependent on the cell-scaffold interaction and the integration with the surrounding biological tissue. Indeed, mimicking the natural extracellular matrix (ECM) of the tissue to be healed represents a further optimization that can limit a possible morphological mismatch between the scaffold and the tissue itself. For this aim, and referring to bone tissue engineering, polylactic acid (PLA) scaffolds were 3D printed with a microstructure inspired by the trabecular architecture and biologically evaluated by means of human osteosarcoma SAOS-2 cells. The cells were seeded on two types of scaffolds differing for the designed pore size (i.e., 400 and 600 µm), showing the same growth exponential trend found in the control and no significant alterations in the actin distribution. The microporous structure of the two tested samples enhanced the protein adsorption capability and mRNA expression of markers related to protein synthesis, proliferation, and osteoblast differentiation. Our findings demonstrate that 3D-printed scaffolds support the adhesion, growth, and differentiation of osteoblast-like cells and the microporous architecture, mimicking the natural bone hierarchical structure, and favoring greater bioactivity. These bioinspired scaffolds represent an interesting new tool for bone tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.