A bone-like nano-hydroxyapatite/collagen loaded injectable scaffold.

From a clinical perspective, the use of injectable scaffolds is very attractive as it minimizes patient discomfort, risk of infection, scar formation and the cost of treatment. Bone refers to a family of materials that are constructed by mineralized collagen fibrils. The main objective of this research was to develop a bone-like nano-hydroxyapatite/collagen (nHAC) loaded chitosan (C)/beta-glycerophosphate (GP) injectable scaffold. The feasibility of developing a thermo-sensitive and injectable chitosan solution in the presence of nHAC was demonstrated. Bone-marrow-derived messenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were used to measure the cell proliferation of C/GP/nHAC scaffolds based on the cell count kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. It was found that MSCs proliferated normally with the C/GP/nHAC composite scaffolds. The C/GP/nHAC composite scaffolds developed in this study exhibited good injectability, thermo-irreversible properties and solidified under mild conditions. No more than 0.02 g ml(-1) of nHAC filler was required to form a non-decaying hydrogel.