Bone repair using a hybrid scaffold of self-assembling peptide PuraMatrix and polyetheretherketone cage in rats

Self-assembling peptide scaffold (SAPS) is well known to have very good bone conduction properties. However, the intensity of SAPS is too weak to actually use it for a clinical bone regeneration. Therefore, we have produced a hybrid scaffold system that involves fabricating a cage from polyetheretherketone (PEEK) that has high intensity, filling the interior of this cage with SAPS, and then transplanted this hybrid scaffold to bone defects in rat femurs. After 28 days, soft X-ray radiographs and histological assessment revealed that good new bone formation was clearly observed in the defects transplanted the PEEK cage with SAPS, but not in the PEEK cage only. The PEEK cage maintained a form and osteoconduction ability of internal SAPS, and SAPS promoted bone formation inside the PEEK; therefore, each was in charge of intensity and bone regeneration separately. The present study suggests that hybrid scaffolds made from PEEK cages and SAPS can be useful tools for the regeneration of load-bearing bones, based on the idea that it should be possible to develop ideal bone filler materials by combining the strength of artificial bone with the bone regeneration and bone conduction properties of SAPS.