Production of hydroxyapatite-bacterial cellulose composite scaffolds with enhanced pore diameters for bone tissue engineering applications

Bone tissue engineering scaffolds used for the treatment of bone defects are required to be osteoconductive, osteoinductive, osteogenic, biocompatible, and have enough porosity to allow osteointegration, as well as vascularization. It is known that addition of the hydroxyapatite (HAp) to bone tissue scaffolds promotes bone formation by increasing osteoconductivity. Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a highly biocompatible material, and its mechanical properties and fibrous structure allow that it can be used as a bone tissue scaffold; yet, the nano-porous structure of BC (50-200 nm) prevents or limits cell migration and vascularization. In this study, it is intended to take advantage of the porous structure and mechanical strength of BC and osteoconductive properties of HAp for the production of tissue engineering scaffolds. Pore sizes of BC were enhanced to 275 mu m by a novel shredded agar technique, and SaOs-2 cells were shown to migrate between the fibers of the modified BC. It was observed that mineralization of SaOs-2 cells was enhanced on in situ produced HAp-BC nano-composites compared to BC scaffolds.