Vittoria

Fabrication and characterization of electrospun polylactide/β-tricalcium phosphate hybrid meshes for potential applications in hard tissue repair

Abstract Non-woven hybrid meshes based on poly(l-lactide-co-d,l-lactide) (dl-PLA) and β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) were fabricated and comprehensively characterized. Stock suspensions of β-TCP powder in dl-PLA acetone solutions were used for the electrospinning process. Structure, morphology and thermal properties of the electrospun samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The electrospun hybrid materials show a micro-composite structure, and a morphology characterized by a three-dimensional porous fibrous mesh with randomly distributed fibers possessing average fiber diameters between 680 and 970 nm, uniform thickness along the fibers and beads structure only for higher β-TCP concentration electrospun samples. Both pure PLA and hybrid non-woven meshes exhibit a good thermal stability and a continuous degradation in simulated body fluid medium. A live/dead staining viability assay using MC3T3-E1 preosteoblasts reveals the excellent cytocompatibility of the fabricated non-wovens. Enhanced alkaline phosphatase (AP) activity of MC3T3-E1 cells during culture on the dl-PLA and the composite non-woven meshes demonstrates their potential for applications in hard tissue repair.

Design of electrospinning mesh devices

This paper describes the features of new membranes that can act as local biomedical devices owing to their peculiar shape in the form of mesh structure. These materials are designed to provide significant effects to reduce local inflammations and improve the tissue regeneration. Lamellar Hydrotalcite loaded with Diclofenac Sodium (HTLc-DIK) was homogenously dispersed inside a polymeric matrix of Poly-caprolactone (PCL) to manufacture membranes by electrospinning technique. The experimental procedure and the criteria employed have shown to be extremely effective at increasing potentiality and related applications. The employed technique has proved to be very useful to manufacture polymeric fibers with diameters in the range of nano-micro scale. In this work a dedicated collector based on a proprietary technology of IME Technologies and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) was used. It allowed to obtain devices with a macro shape of a 3D-mesh. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) highlights a very interesting texture of the electrospun fibers. They show a lamellar morphology that is only slightly modified by the inclusion of the interclay embedded in the devices to control the drug release phenomena.