Biocomposite based on polyelectrolyte complexes-nanohydroxyapatite for bone tissue engineering

M. SOLEDAD BELLUZO; LARA F. MEDINA; M. SUSANA CORTIZO

Buenos Aires

Congreso; COMAT 2015 - 6th International Conference on Science and Technology of Composite Materials; 2015

Biocomposite based on polyelectrolyte complexes-nanohydroxyapatite for bone tissue engineering Nowadays, bone tissue engineering has focus on porous biodegradable materials to induce the formation of bone by acting as a template to cell growing. The technique has advantages over others like autografting and allografting. Additionally, these materials can combine some constitutive components of the bone (such us hydroxyapatite) with natural non-toxic biodegradable polymers allowing an improvement on the properties of the obtained materials. Currently, composites made from nano-scaled hydroxyapatite (HA) and organic polymers have been used for this purpose. Thus, the goal of this work was to obtain a novel degradable composite that combined nano HA with a polyelectrolyte complex obtained from chitosan (CHI - cationic polyelectrolyte) and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC - anionic polyelectrolyte). The biocomposite was prepared from 1% w/v CHI solutions in 1% w/v acetic acid and 1% w/v CMC; the nano HA was obtained by a procedure developed in our laboratory. The biocomposite samples were obtained by dropping CMC into a solution of CHI-HA under constant stirring and in the presence of ultrasound. Finally, the composites were freeze-drying until constant weight was achieved. The structure of the matrix was characterized by Fluorescence Microscopy (FM) and a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The interactions between the components of the composite were analysed by FTIR-ATR. Finally, compression, swelling and stability test were performed. FM and SEM results showed a three-dimensional porous structure for the nano HA-CHI-CMC composites. The mean pore size was suitable for cell proliferation. FTIR-ATR analysis showed specific interactions between the components in the biocomposite. The compression test, the stability and swelling studies showed that this biocomposites display properties that made this material a promising candidate for bone repair.