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Updated: May 2, 2026
Electrospinning Fibrous Polymer Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering and Cell Culture
Published on: October 21, 2009
Thermoplastic polyurethane/hydroxyapatite electrospun scaffolds for bone tissue engineering: effects of polymer
Hao-Yang Mi1, SunMi Palumbo, Xin Jing
1National Engineering Research Center of Novel Equipment for Polymer Processing, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China; Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53715; Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706.
Abstract:
Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)/hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffolds were fabricated via electrospinning. The effects of TPU properties and HA particle size on scaffold physical properties and osteoblast-like cell performance were investigated. It was found that the addition of micro-HA (mHA), which was inlayed in the fiber, decreased the electrospun fiber diameter. On the contrary, nano-HA (nHA), which was either embedded or existed inside of the fiber, increased the fiber diameter for both soft and hard TPUs. The soft TPU had a much lower Young's modulus and higher strain-at-break than the hard TPU. The addition of both mHA and nHA decreased the tensile properties; this decrease was more significant with mHA. The cells on the hard scaffolds actively proliferated and migrated compared to those on the soft scaffolds. On the other hand, cells on the soft scaffolds more effectively induced osteogenesis of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) than those on the hard scaffolds. In addition, our data suggest that the soft scaffolds with supplementation of nHA further enhanced osteogenesis of hMSCs compared to those without nHA. The soft TPU scaffolds containing nano-HA have the potential to be used in bone tissue engineering applications.
