Fabrication and characterization of three-dimensional electrospun scaffolds for bone tissue engineering

When traumatic injury, tumor removal, or disease results in significant bone loss, reconstructive surgery is required. Bone grafts are used in orthopedic reconstructive procedures to provide mechanical support and promote bone regeneration. In this study, we applied a heat sintering technique to fabricate 3D electrospun scaffolds that were used to evaluate effects of mineralization and fiber orientation on scaffold strength. We electrospun PLLA/gelatin scaffolds with a layer of PDLA and heat sintered them into three-dimensional cylindrical scaffolds. Scaffolds were mineralized by incubation in 10× simulated body fluid for 6, 24, and 48 h to evaluate the effect of mineralization on scaffolds compressive mechanical properties. The effects of heat sintering hydroxyapatite (HA) microparticles directly to the scaffolds on mineral deposition, distribution and mechanical properties of the scaffolds were also evaluated. We found that orientation of the fibers had little effect on the compressive mechanical properties of the scaffolds. However, increasing the mineralization times resulted in an increase in compressive mechanical properties. Also, the direct addition of HA microparticles had no effect on the scaffold mechanical properties, but had a significant effect on the mineral deposition on PLLA/gelatin scaffolds.