Effect of PLGA scaffold containing demineralized bone solution for articular cartilage tissue engineering: In vitro test

Articular cartilage has an intrinsic difficulty in recovering damages, which requires its tissue engineering treatment. Demineralized bone particle (DBP) contains various bioactive molecules. It is widely used biomaterials in the field of tissue engineering. We developed the synthetic/natural hybrid scaffolds with poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) and solution of DBP. The chondrocytes were seeded on the PLGA-DBP scaffolds and MTT assay, morphological observation, biological assay for collagen, sGAG, and RT-PCR were performed to analyze the effect of the DBP on cell viability and extracellular matrix secretion. In SEM observation, we observed that PLGA-DBP scaffolds had uniform porosity. As MTT assay showed scaffolds containing DB solution had higher cell viability then only PLGA scaffolds. The PLGA-DBP scaffolds had better ECM production than PLGA scaffold. It was proven by the higher specific mRNA expression in the PLGA-DBP scaffold than that in PLGA scaffold. These results indicated that PLGA-DBP scaffolds might serve as potential cell delivery vehicles and structural bases for in vitro tissue engineered articular cartilage.