Cartilage defects cause joint pain and loss of mobility. It is crucial to induce the chondrogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) by both biological and structural signals in cartilage tissue engineering. Sponge-like scaffolds fabricated using native cartilage extracellular matrix components can induce the BMSC differentiation by biological signals and limited structural signals. In this study, an oriented poly(L-lactic acid)-co-poly(ε-caprolactone) P(LLA-CL)/collagen type I (Col-I) nanofiber yarn mesh, fabricated by dynamic liquid electrospinning served as a skeleton for a freeze-dried Col-I/hyaluronate (HA) chondral phase (SPONGE) containing both structural and biological signals to guide BMSC chondrogenic differentiation. In vitro results show that the Yarn Col-I/HA hybrid scaffold (Yarn-CH) promotes orientation, adhesion and proliferation of BMSCs better than SPONGE. Furthermore, BMSCs seeded on the Yarn-CH scaffold demonstrated a large increase in the glycosaminoglycan content and expression of collagen type II following a 21-day culture.
Keywords: Cartilage repair; Chondrogenic differentiation; Collagen type I; Electrospinning; Hyaluronate; Yarn.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.