IN VITRO BIOLOGICAL EVALUATIONS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL SCAFFOLD DEVELOPED FROM SINGLE-CRYSTAL APATITE FIBRES FOR TISSUE ENGINEERING OF BONE

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Single-crystal apatite fibres were synthesized from aqueous solutions in the Ca(NO₃)₂-(NH₄)₂HPO₄-HNO₃systems by a homogeneous precipitation method using urea. The resulting fibres with long-axis sizes of 60-100μm were composed of carbonate-containing apatite with preferred orientation along the c-axis. We have developed porous scaffold for tissue engineering of bone using the single-crystal apatite fibres. The resulting apatite-fibre scaffolds have large pores with diameters of 110-250μm and high porosities of 98-99%. The scaffolds were biologically evaluated using two kinds of cells, osteoblastic cells (MC3T3-E1) and rat bone marrow cells. In both cases, the cells cultured in the scaffolds showed excellent cellular response, such as good cell proliferation and enhanced differentiation into osteoblasts. We conclude that such scaffolds with high porosity and large pore size may be effective as the matrix of tissue engineered structures for promoting regeneration of bone.