Fabrication and characterization of carboxylated starch-chitosan bioactive scaffold for bone regeneration

This study offers new bioactive composite scaffolds from carboxylated starch-chitosan for bone regeneration. In order to introduce COOH groups into the scaffolds, chitosan was first dissolved in citric acid and then mixed with different amounts of starch. Various characterization techniques were used to analyze the structure, morphology, compressive strength, and apatite mineralization of the composites, which were compared to pure chitosan scaffolds. The results indicated that chitosan scaffolds showed the highest pore size and porosity, while no apatite deposition was observed even after 14days of soaking in simulated body fluid. For composite samples, the pore size and porosity decreased as the starch content increased. In spite of such decrease, the pore size measurements were in the optimal range for bone regeneration. The bone-like apatite mineralization, compressive strength, carboxyl content, and swelling ratio of the composites increased with additional starch. Cell culture experiments demonstrated that higher starch content can enhance proliferation, ALP activity, and mineralization of osteoblast-like cells (MG63). (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.