Preparation and characterization of microporous poly(d,l-lactic acid) film for tissue engineering scaffold

Abstract

We prepared a series of microporous films based on poly(d,l-lactic acid) (PLA) via phase separation. According to scanning electron microscopy (SEM), a 3-dimensional foamy structure with multimicrometer scale pores on the air surface of film could be observed. As the morphology of PLA film could not be stabilized using solvent–nonsolvent phase separation, we investigated the effect of temperature, air movement, and concentration on the properties of microporous PLA films. The results show that when the temperature was 25°C in a vacuum, it was easy to prepare PLA film with micropores, and it was stable. As the relationship between the morphology and formation factors was clear and the morphology of the PLA film was controllable, we studied the PLA film’s potential use for cell culture. SEM results showed that NIH3T3 cell could be adhered on the surface of film well after incubation for 2 days. Meanwhile, in vitro culture experiments revealed the great biocompatibility of the scaffold for adsorption and proliferation of fibroblasts.

Keywords:

• poly(d,l-lactic acid)
• scaffold
• phase separation
• cell culture

Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by National 863 project (2007AA021902), New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-08-0371), and Chinese Key Basic Research Program (2010CB529906). In addition, we thank Wang Hui (Analytical and Testing Center, Sichuan University) for her great help in SEM observation.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.