Physical modification of the interior surfaces of PLGA porous scaffolds using sugar fibers as template

A three-dimensional (3D) poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) porous scaffold with microgrooves and microholes on the pore walls was fabricated by using salt particulates as main porogens and sugar fibers as modifiers. Besides macropores templated from salt particulates, microgrooves and microholes were generated after leaching sugar fibers. The resultant porous scaffolds were of high porosity over 90% and still kept good mechanical properties. The microgrooves were globally randomly distributed, but locally anisotropic, resulting in contact guidance of cells, and an appropriate fraction of fibers in fabrication of 3D scaffolds led to a significantly enhanced cell viability; the microholes increased the loading amount of a model protein bovine serum albumin. Two key ideal parameters of this technical strategy, the full coverage amount of sugar fibers on the salt particulates, m(c), and the ratio of the surface areas of modified and unmodified scaffolds S(in)=S(in,o) were defined and derived.