Preparation And Characterisation Of Nano-Hydroxyapatite/Silk Fibroin/Bacterial Cellulose Composites

In the recent years, despite the advances in biomaterials and tissue engineering,clinical repair of critical-size or non-healing skeletal defects remains challenging. Scaffoldwhich has essential biological and biomechanical entities at the deteriorated defect site isnow the main aim of bone tissue engineering.Nanoporous bacterial cellulose is an attractive biomaterial scaffold for tissueengineering due to its biocompatibility and good mechanical properties. However, the linkbetween bacterial cellulose and hydroxyapatite is very weak, so during the compositeprocedure, silk fibroin is added, for the structure of silk fibroin plays a vital role in thenucleation and growth of HAp, and also controlling the morphologies of the inorganiccrystals.In the experiment, we prepared three kinds of hydroxyapatite/silk fibroin/bacterialcellulose composites by different kinds of preparation methods: stimulate body fluidmethod (biomimetic technique), wet-chemical method (in-situ precipitation), and alternatesoaking method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transformed infraredspectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were employed to characterize theHAp/SF/BC nanocomposites. The experimental results show that HAp can be formed onSF/BC matrix, and the crystal has low crystallinity, which is similar to the natural bone.In the present work, the in vitro biocompatibility of the three kinds of HAp/SF/BCcomposites is tested by culturing ADSCs (adipose-derived stem cells) and intervertebraldisc cells onto the scaffolds. CCK8test was applied to assess the viablility of cells andcytotoxicity. The result showed that all of the samples have no toxicity to cells. As theresult of SEM and ALP activity, in-situ precipitation method is the best method tofabrication HAp/SF/BC composites, which showed the suitable biocompatibility andcause a significant impact on in vitro proliferation.