Chitosan/β-1,3-glucan/calcium phosphate ceramics composites--novel cell scaffolds for bone tissue engineering application.

Bone tissue engineering put emphasis on fabrication three-dimensional biodegradable porous scaffolds that possess ability to enhance adhesion, proliferation and differentiation of osteoblast cells, therefore supporting bone regeneration and functional bone tissue formation. The aim of this work was to fabricate novel tri-component scaffolds composed of chitosan, β-1,3-glucan, and bioceramics and to evaluate their basic structural, mechanical, and biological properties. It should be noted that we are the first who describe fabrication and characterization of tri-component composites containing β-1,3-glucan. Microstructure of novel composites was visualized by computed tomography scanning and SEM. Compressive strength and Young's modulus of the composites were evaluated by compression testing. The biocompatibility was assessed in vitro by cytotoxicity, cell attachment and cell proliferation tests using human foetal osteoblast cell line. Our results demonstrated that novel composites possess good compressive strength as the effect of polysaccharide components of scaffolds, are very elastic, are non-toxic, favourable to cell adhesion and promote cell proliferation. However, novel biomaterials revealed relatively low Young's modulus values. Thus, we infer that fabricated novel composites are promising materials for bone tissue engineering application as cell scaffolds to fill small bone losses rather than as massive bone fillers exposed to mechanical load.