Engineered electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL)/octacalcium phosphate (OCP) scaffold for bone tissue engineering

The main challenge in bone tissue engineering is to find suitable biological substitutes which act as scaffolds. Hence, in this work, a novel scaffold composed of octacalcium phosphate (OCP) particles fabricated by co-precipitation method and polycaprolactone (PCL) using electrospinning technique was introduced. The electrospun scaffolds were characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD, DSC and TGA analysis. The mechanical properties of the composite scaffolds including maximum tensile stress, strain at break and Young modulus were measured. The bioactivity of the scaffolds was determined by soaking in simulated body fluid (SBF). The osteoblast human G-292 cells were seeded on the scaffold's surface for in vitro studies including cell culture and MTT assay. The FTIR and XRD results showed that OCP component has an appropriate incorporation into the polymeric PCL matrix. The SEM analysis exhibited a significant reduction in the fiber size thanks to the OCP. The results of tensile test confirmed that the PCL/OCP composite introduced suitable mechanical properties. Furthermore, the OCP particles led to form hydroxyapatite layer on the scaffold's surface in the vicinity of SBF solution. The obtained results from the MTT assay described that OCP particles have a positive impact on the growth of the osteoblast human G-292 cells on the scaffolds. Overall, aforesaid features of the PCL/OCP composite scaffold make it a great candidate for the bone tissue engineering application.