Biomineral coating increases bone formation by ex vivo BMP-7 gene therapy in rapid prototyped poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) porous scaffolds.

Porousbiodegradable polymer scaffolds are widely utilized for bone tissue engineering, but are not osteoconductive like calcium phosphate scaffolds. We combine indirect solid freeform fabrication (SFF), ex vivo gene therapy, with biomineral coating to compare the effect of biomineral coating on bone regeneration for Poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and Poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) scaffolds with the same porous architecture. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and micro-computed tomography (μ-CT) demonstrate PLLA and PCL scaffolds have the same porous architecture and are completely coated. All scaffolds are seeded with human gingival fibroblasts (HGF) transduced with adenovirus encoded with either bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP-7) or green fluorescent protein (GFP), and implanted into mice subcutaneously for 3 and 10 weeks. Only scaffolds with BMP-7 transduced HGFs show mineralized tissue formation. At 3 weeks some blood vessel-like structures are observed in coated PLLA and PCL scaffolds, but there is no significant difference in bone ingrowth between the coated and uncoated scaffolds for either PLLA or PCL. At 10 weeks, however, coated scaffolds (both PLLA and PCL) have significantly more bone ingrowth than uncoated scaffolds, which have more fibrous tissue. Coated PLLA scaffolds have improved mechanical properties compared with uncoated PLLA scaffolds due to increased bone ingrowth.