Musculoskeletal Regenerative Engineering: Biomaterials, Structures, and Small Molecules

Figure 4

(a) A chitosan/PLAGA composite microsphere; (b) a 3D chitosan/PLAGA scaffold fabricated by heat sintering; “reprinted from Biomaterials, 27/28, Jiang et al. in vitro evaluation of chitosan/poly(lactic acid-glycolic acid) sintered microsphere scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, pg. 4894, 2006, with permission from Elsevier.” (c) Chitosan/PLAGA scaffold immobilized with heparin as evidenced by the green fluorescence; (d)–(f) MC3T3-E1 osteoblast-like cell proliferation at days 4, 7, and 11 on the heparinized chitosan/PLAGA scaffolds as illustrated by dual staining of cell nuclei (blue) and cytoskeletal protein actin (red); “reprinted from Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, 93A/3, Jiang et al. functionalization of chitosan/poly(lactic acid-glycolic acid) sintered microsphere scaffolds via surface heparinization for bone tissue engineering, pg. 1193, 2009, with permission from John Wiley and Sons.” (g) A radiograph showing new bone formation bridging the critical-sized defect at 12 weeks after operation using chitosan/PLAGA scaffolds loaded with heparin and bone morphogenetic protein—2 using a rabbit ulnar model; (h) Von Kossa staining of implanted scaffold showing new bone formation adjacent to the scaffold (M: microsphere, NB: new bone); (i) trichrome staining showing dense connective tissue formation in the void space among microspheres (CT: connective tissue). “Reprinted from Acta Biomaterialia, 6/9, Jiang et al., Chitosan-poly(lactide-co-glycolide) microsphere-based scaffolds for bone tissue engineering: in vitro degradation and in vivo bone regeneration studies, pg. 3457, 2010, with permission from Elsevier.”