Hybrid composites of synthetic and natural polymers represent materials of choice for bone tissue engineering. Ulvan, a biologically active marine sulfated polysaccharide, is attracting great interest in the development of novel biomedical scaffolds due to recent reports on its osteoinductive properties. Herein, a series of hybrid polycaprolactone scaffolds containing ulvan either alone or in blends with κ-carrageenan and chondroitin sulfate was prepared and characterized. The impact of the preparation methodology and the polysaccharide composition on their morphology, as well as on their mechanical, thermal, water uptake and porosity properties was determined, while their osteoinductive potential was investigated through the evaluation of cell adhesion, viability, and osteogenic differentiation of seeded human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells. The results verified the osteoinductive ability of ulvan, showing that its incorporation into the polycaprolactone matrix efficiently promoted cell attachment and viability, thus confirming its potential in the development of biomedical scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration applications.
Keywords: bone tissue engineering; hybrid scaffolds; mesenchymal stem cells; osteogenic differentiation; osteoinductive capacity; ulvan.