Biocompatible and Electroconductive Nanocomposite Scaffolds with Improved Piezoelectric Response for Bone Tissue Engineering

Figure 7

(a) Schematic representation of the ultrasound stimulation of stem cells cultured on nanofibrous scaffolds. (b) The viability of hBMMSCs on PLLA, PLLA/PANI, and PLLA/PANI/CNT nanofibrous scaffolds after being cultured for 3 in presence of ultrasound stimulation. (c) Analysis of gene expression profiles of osteogenic markers. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis of the osteogenic differentiation of hBMMSCs cultured on PLLA-based nanofibrous after 4 weeks in osteogenic media in presence or absence of external stimulation, here, ultrasolication. Expression levels of five osteogenic genes, COL1A1, BMP-2, RUNX2, BMP2, and OCN were evaluated relative to GAPDH, which was used as a housekeeping gene. The data are expressed as (). The results were statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA with post-hoc analysis. For all the tests, the threshold was set to for “statistically significant”, for “statistically very significant,” and for “statistically extremely significant.” Statistical significance is indicated by (significant), (very significant), and (extremely significant) for differences between samples with different formulations.

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