Tough Photo-Cross-Linked PCL-Hydroxyapatite Composites for Bone Tissue Engineering
Biomacromolecules 2022
Quinten Thijssen, Kim Cornelis, Rand Alkaissy, Jānis Ločs, Lana Van Damme, David Schaubroeck, Robin Willaert, Sarah Snelling, Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy, Sandra Van Vlierberghe

Acrylate-based photo-cross-linked poly(ϵ-caprolactone) (PCL) tends to show low elongation and strength. Incorporation of osteo-inductive hydroxyapatite (HAp) further enhances this effect, which limits its applicability in bone tissue engineering. To overcome this, the thiol-ene click reaction is introduced for the first time in order to photo-cross-link PCL composites with 0, 10, 20, and 30 wt % HAp nanoparticles. It is demonstrated that the elongation at break and ultimate strength increase 10-and 2-fold, respectively, when the photopolymerization mechanism is shifted from a radical chain-growth (i.e., acrylate cross-linking) toward a radical step-growth polymerization (i.e., thiol-ene cross-linking). Additionally, it is illustrated that osteoblasts can attach to and proliferate on the surface of the photo-cross-linked PCL-HAp composites. Finally, the incorporation of HAp nanoparticles is shown to reduce the ALP activity of osteoblasts. Overall, thiol-ene cross-linked PCL-HAp composites can be considered as promising potential materials for bone tissue engineering.


Keywords
Composites, Deformation, Materials, Nucleic acid structure, Organic compounds
DOI
10.1021/acs.biomac.1c01584
Hyperlink
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.biomac.1c01584?cookieSet=1

Thijssen, Q., Cornelis, K., Alkaissy, R., Ločs, J., Damme, L., Schaubroeck, D., Willaert, R., Snelling, S., Mouthuy, P., Van Vlierberghe, S. Tough Photo-Cross-Linked PCL-Hydroxyapatite Composites for Bone Tissue Engineering. Biomacromolecules, 2022, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp.1366-1375. ISSN 1525-7797. e-ISSN 1526-4602. Available from: doi:10.1021/acs.biomac.1c01584

Publication language
English (en)
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