Repairing the lost or damaged mandible is very difficult and time-consuming, so there is a great hope for tissue engineering to accelerate it. At the present study, electrospinning was applied to fabricate polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and PVDF-polyaniline (PANI) composite scaffolds. In addition, extremely low frequency pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) was applied for treating the stem cells derived from dental pulp (DPSCs) when cultured on the nanofibrous scaffolds. Osteoinductive property of the fabricated PVDF, PVDF-PANI scaffold at the presence and absence of the PEMF was investigated by evaluating the common osteogenic differentiation markers in seeded-DPSCs on the scaffold. Results demonstrated that cell attachment, protein adsorption and cells viability were increased when PEMF was applied. In addition, ALP activity, calcium content, osteogenic genes and protein evaluations confirmed that PEMF could significantly increase osteoinductivity of the PVDF while composite with PANI. According to the results, the use of polymers with piezoelectricity and conductivity features plus PEMF exposure has a promising potential to improve the current treatment methods in bone and mandibular defects.
Keywords: Extremely low frequency; dental pulp stem cells; mandibular and bone tissue engineering; polyaniline; polyvinylidene fluoride.