Inflammatory response and antioxidation on Vitamin C impregnated poly(lactide-co-glycolide) scaffold

Typical biodegradable polymer poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) has been widely applied to tissue engineering scaffolds and drug delivery systems. However, after the implantation, the ester bond of PLGA gets hydrolyzed and the resulting degradation products decrease the pH in the surrounding tissue causing local inflammatory reaction. Vitamin C is commonly used in food, pharmaceutical products and is known to exert potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Thus, vitamin C is used with PLGA as carrier in tissue engineering. In this study, vitamin C incorporated PLGA scaffolds were fabricated and further the effects of vitamin C were evaluated on the inflammatory responses in vitro. The three-dimensional PLGA scaffolds were fabricated by adding of 3, 5, and 10 wt% vitamin C via a casting extraction method. Then the samples were examined; the mechanical properties of compressive strength and SEM. The cell attachment and proliferation were also studied the MTT, SEM, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects by RT-PCR and FACS. Results showed that 5 wt% vitamin C/PLGA scaffold was better than other scaffolds in terms of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, cell attachment and proliferation. Based on the low level of inflammatory responses, the 5 wt% vitamin C/PLGA scaffold can be envisioned as a promising candidate for future biomedical applications.