3D-Printed Composite Bioceramic Scaffolds for Bone and Cartilage Integrated Regeneration

Nanjian Xu; Dezhi Lu; Lei Qiang; Yihao Liu; Dalin Yin; Zhiyong Wang; Yongxiang Luo; Chen Yang; Zhenjiang Ma; Hui Ma; Jinwu Wang

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c03284

3D-Printed Composite Bioceramic Scaffolds for Bone and Cartilage Integrated Regeneration

ACS Omega. 2023 Oct 2;8(41):37918-37926. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c03284. eCollection 2023 Oct 17.

Authors

Nanjian Xu¹, Dezhi Lu^{2

3}, Lei Qiang^{2

4}, Yihao Liu², Dalin Yin⁵, Zhiyong Wang⁶, Yongxiang Luo⁶, Chen Yang⁷, Zhenjiang Ma², Hui Ma^{2

8}, Jinwu Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Spine Surgery, Ningbo Sixth Hospital, Ningbo, Zhejiang 32500, China.
² Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orthopaedic Implants, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200011, China.
³ School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China.
⁵ Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310023, China.
⁶ School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen 518060, China.
⁷ Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Tissue Repair Materials, Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325000, China.
⁸ Renhe Hospital, Baoshan District, Shanghai 201900, China.

Abstract

Osteoarthritis may result in both cartilage and subchondral bone damage. It is a significant challenge to simultaneously repair cartilage due to the distinct biological properties between cartilage and bone. Here, strontium copper tetrasilicate/β-tricalcium phosphate (Wesselsite[SrCuSi₄O₁₀]/Ca₃(PO₄)₂, WES-TCP) composite scaffolds with different WES contents (1, 2, and 4 wt %) were fabricated via a three-dimensional (3D) printing method for the osteochondral regeneration. The physicochemical properties and biological activities of the scaffolds were systematically investigated. 2WES-TCP (WES-TCP with 2 wt % WES) composite scaffolds not only improved the compressive strength but also enhanced the proliferation of both rabbit bone mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs) and chondrocytes, as well as their differentiation. The in vivo study further confirmed that WES-TCP scaffolds significantly promoted the regeneration of both bone and cartilage tissue in rabbit osteochondral defects compared with pure TCP scaffolds owing to the sustained and controlled release of bioactive ions (Si, Cu, and Sr) from bioactive scaffolds. These results show that 3D-printed WES-TCP scaffolds with bilineage bioactivities take full advantage of the bifunctional properties of bioceramics to reconstruct the complex osteochondral interface, which broadens the approach to engineering therapeutic platforms for biomedical applications.