Background: These normal entheses are not reestablished after repair despite significant advances in surgical techniques. There is a significant need to develop integrative biomaterials, facilitating functional tendon-to-bone integration.
Materials and methods: We fabricated a highly interconnective graphene oxide-doped electrospun poly(lactide-co-glycolide acid) (GO-PLGA) nanofibrous membrane by electrospinning technique and evaluated them using in vitro cell assays. Then, we established rabbit models, the PLGA and GO-PLGA nanofibrous membranes were used to augment the rotator cuff repairs. The animals were killed postoperatively, which was followed by micro-computed tomography, histological and biomechanical evaluation.
Results: GO was easily mixed into PLGA filament without changing the three dimensional microstructure. An in vitro evaluation demonstrated that the PLGA membranes incorporated with GO accelerated the proliferation of BMSCs and furthered the Osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs. In addition, an in vivo assessment further revealed that the local application of GO-PLGA membrane to the gap between the tendon and the bone in a rabbit model promoted the healing enthesis, increased new bone and cartilage generation, and improved collagen arrangement and biomechanical properties in comparison with repair with PLGA only.
Conclusion: The electrospun GO-PLGA fibrous membrane provides an effective approach for the regeneration of tendon to bone enthesis.
Keywords: cartilage; collagen arrangement; enthesis; osteogenic material; rabbit model.