In vitro degradation of porous poly(lactic acid)/quantum dots scaffolds

In this study, cadmium selenide/zinc sulfide (CdSe/ZnS) quantum dots (QDs) were introduced into poly(lactic acid) (PLA) for fabrication of photoluminescent PLA/QDs scaffolds. TEM images revealed that the QDs were uniformly dispersed in the PLA. Compressive modulus and thermal stability of the PLA/QDs scaffolds are higher than those of the unfilled PLA scaffold. Cytotoxicity test results confirmed the non-cytotoxicity of the PLA/QDs scaffolds. During the process of in vitro degradation, the degradation rate of the PLA was accelerated by the presence of the QDs, and the molecular weight distributions of the PLA/QDs scaffolds were much broader when compared with the unfilled PLA ones. During the first 84 weeks of the degradation process, the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of the PLA/QDs scaffolds decreased with almost the same degradation ratio. The results suggested that the CdSe/ZnS QDs have potential applications for monitoring in vivo degradation of tissue engineering scaffolds.