Experimental study on polycaprolactone scaffold cell-based nasal implant using 3D printing

Abstract

Background: This study was conducted to address the potential of combining porous biocompatible scaffolds with primary cells or autologous diced cartilage in cartilage tissue engineering in the animal model. The purpose of this study is an experimental evaluation of polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold cell-based nasal implant using three-dimensional (3D) printing.

Methods: In this study, we applied hollow PCL cage scaffolds with 200 and 400 µm pore sizes. The scaffolds were divided into three groups (n = 4 for each group): (1) PCL cage scaffolds loaded with agarose gel and chondrocytes; (2) PCL cage scaffolds loaded with agarose gel and fibroblasts, and (3) PCL cages loaded with autologous diced cartilage. In each group, chondrocytes and fibroblasts were seeded into the agarose gel at the density of 5 × 10⁶ cells/mL.

Results: All implants showed sufficient integration into the surrounding tissue. It was revealed that chondrocytes were proliferated and differentiated better in the "400 µm" scaffolds than in the "200 µm" group. However, a pore size of 200 µm was optimal for fibroblasts' proliferation. In addition, the results of our study showed that the use of PCL-based scaffolds can achieve the desirable stable augmentation effect with almost none of the changes of contour.

Conclusion: In this study, both groups: (1) PCL cage scaffolds loaded with agarose gel and chondrocytes and (2) PCL cages loaded with autologous diced cartilage demonstrated chondrogenic potential with scaffolds with 400 µm pore size. The PCL cage scaffolds loaded with agarose gel and fibroblasts demonstrated potential in cartilage tissue formation within the pore size of 200 µm.

Keywords: Nasal implant; Polycaprolactone (PCL); Pore size; Scaffold; Three-dimensional (3D) culture technique; Three-dimensional (3D) printing.