Preparation of chitosan biguanidine/PANI-containing self-healing semi-conductive waterborne scaffolds for bone tissue engineering

Abstract

Electrically conducting self-healing scaffolds are known as a new series of intelligent biomaterial for regulating Human Adipose Mesenchymal Stem Cells biological behaviors, especially their differentiation to bone cells. Herein, we developed a novel hydrophilic semi-conductive chitosan derivative (CP) and loaded it into the self-healing waterborne polyurethane structure, as a new osteogenic agent. The fabricated scaffolds exhibited excellent shape memory properties with shape fixity (> 97 %) and shape recovery ratio (> 98 %) with excellent self-healing value (> 93 %) at a temperature close to the body temperature. The results of MTT, cell attachment, alkaline phosphatase activity, and alizarin red staining analysis demonstrated that the CP-contained scaffolds promote proliferation of hADSCs and matrix mineralization. Also, by introducing the CP the gene expression level of COL-1, ALP, RUNX2, and OCN were significantly enhanced, in line with matrix mineralization. These multifunctional engineered constructs are promising biomaterials for repairing various bone defects.

Keywords: Bone tissue engineering; Chitosan derivative; Self-healing; Semi-conductive scaffolds; Shape memory.