Improvement of Distribution and Osteogenic Differentiation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells by Hyaluronic Acid and β-Tricalcium Phosphate-Coated Polymeric Scaffold In Vitro

Bone tissue engineering requires a well-designed scaffold that can be biodegradable, biocompatible, and support the stem cells to osteogenic differentiation. Porous polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold prepared by fused deposition modeling is an attractive biomaterial that has been used in clinic. However, PCL scaffolds lack biological function and osteoinductivity. In this study, we functionalized the PCL scaffolds by embedding them with a matrix of hyaluronic acid/β-tricalcium phosphate (HA/TCP). Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were cultured on scaffolds with and without coating to investigate proliferation and osteogenic differentiation. The DNA amount was significantly higher in the HA/TCP-coated scaffold on day 21. At the gene expression level, HA/TCP coating significantly increased the expression of ALP and COLI on day 4. These data correlated with the ALP activity peaking on day 7 in the HA/TCP-coated scaffold. Scanning electron microscope and histological analysis revealed that the cell matrix and calcium deposition were distributed more uniformly in the coated scaffolds compared to scaffolds without coating. In conclusion, the HA/TCP coating improved cellular proliferation, osteogenic differentiation, and uniform distribution of the cellular matrix in vitro. The HA/TCP-PCL scaffold holds great promise to accommodate human bone marrow-derived MSCs for bone reconstruction purposes, which warrants future in vivo studies.