Cylindrical Layered Bone Scaffolds with Anisotropic Mechanical Properties as Potential Drug Delivery Systems

3D cylindrical layered scaffolds with anisotropic mechanical properties were prepared according to a new and simple method, which involves gelatin foaming, deposition of foamed strips, in situ crosslinking, strip rolling and lyophilization. Different genipin concentrations were tested in order to obtain strips with different crosslinking degrees and a tunable stability in biological environment. Before lyophilization, the strips were curled in a concentric structure to generate anisotropic spiral-cylindrical scaffolds. The scaffolds displayed significantly higher values of stress at break and of the Young modulus in compression along the longitudinal than the transverse direction. Further improvement of the mechanical properties was achieved by adding strontium-substituted hydroxyapatite (Sr-HA) to the scaffold composition and by increasing genipin concentration. Moreover, composition modulated also water uptake ability and degradation behavior. The scaffolds showed a sustained strontium release, suggesting possible applications for the local treatment of abnormally high bone resorption. This study demonstrates that assembly of layers of different composition can be used as a tool to obtain scaffolds with modulated properties, which can be loaded with drugs or biologically active molecules providing properties tailored upon the needs.