J Biomed Mater Res A. 2017 Sep 7. doi: 10.1002/jbm.a.36226. [Epub ahead of print]

Gelatin methacrylate scaffold for bone tissue engineering: The influence of polymer concentration.

Abstract

Gelatin Methacrylate (GelMA) is an inexpensive, photocrosslinkable, cell-responsive hydrogel which has drawn attention for a wide range of tissue engineering applications. The potential of GelMA scaffolds was demonstrated to be tunable for different TE applications through modifying the polymer concentration, methacrylation degree or UV light intensity. Despite the promising results of GelMA hydrogels in tissue engineering, the influence of polymer concentration for bone tissue engineering scaffolds was not established yet. Thus, in this study, we have demonstrated the effect of polymer concentration in GelMA scaffolds on osteogenic differentiation. We prepared GelMA scaffolds with 5 and 10% polymer concentrations and characterized the scaffolds in terms of porosity, pore size, swelling characteristics and mechanical properties. Subsequent to the scaffolds characterization, the scaffolds were seeded with bone marrow drived rat mesenchymal stem cells and cultured in osteogenic media to evaluate the possible osteogenic differentiation effect exerted by the polymer concentration. After 7, 14, 21 and 28 days, DNA content, calcium deposition and ALP activity of scaffolds were evaluated quantitatively by colorimetric bioassays. Furthermore, the distribution of the calcium deposition within the scaffolds was attained qualitatively and quantitatively by micro computer tomography (µCT). Our data suggests, GelMA hydrogels prepared with 5% polymer concentration has promoted homogeneous extracellular matrix calcification and it is a great candidate for bone tissue engineering applications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.