| Background: The bone tissue engineering (BTE) approach has been introduced as an alternative to conventional
treatments for large non-healing bone defects. Magnetism promotes stem cells’ adherence to biocompatible scafolds
toward osteoblast diferentiation. Furthermore, osteogenic diferentiation media are expensive and any changes in
its composition afect stem cells diferentiation. Moreover, media growth factors possess a short half-life resulting in
the rapid loss of their functions in vivo. With the above in mind, we fabricated a multilayered nanocomposite scafold
containing the wild type of Type I collagen (Col I) with endogenous magnetic property to promote osteogenesis in
rat ADSCs with the minimum requirement of osteogenic diferentiation medium.
Methods: Fe3O4 NPs were synthesized by co-precipitation method and characterized using SEM, VSM, and FTIR.
Then, a PCL/Col I nanocomposite scafold entrapping Fe3O4 NPs was fabricated by electrospinning and characterized
using SEM, TEM, AFM, VSM, Contact Angle, tensile stretching, and FTIR. ADSCs were isolated from rat adipose tissue
and identifed by fow cytometry. ADSCs were loaded onto PCL/Col I and PCL/Col I/Fe3O4-scafolds for 1–3 weeks
with/without osteogenic media conditions. The cell viability, cell adhesion, and osteogenic diferentiation were evalu‑
ated using MTT assay, SEM, DAPI staining, ALP/ARS staining, RT-PCR, and western blotting, respectively.
Results: SEM, VSM, and FTIR results indicated that Fe3O4 was synthesized in nano-sized (15–30 nm) particles with
spherical-shaped morphology and superparamagnetic properties with approved chemical structure as FTIR revealed.
According to SEM images, the fabricated magnetic scafolds consisted of nanofber (500–700 nm). TEM images have
shown the Fe3O4 NPs entrapped in the scafold’s fber without bead formation. FTIR spectra analysis confrmed the
maintenance of the natural structure of Col I, PCL, and Fe3O4 upon electrospinning. AFM data have shown that MNPs
incorporation introduced stripe-like topography to nanofbers, while the depth of the grooves has decreased from
800 to 500 nm. Flow cytometry confrmed the phenotype of ADSCs according to their surface markers (i.e., CD29
and CD105). Additionally, Fe3O4 NP improved nanocomposite scafold strength, wettability, porosity, biocompatibility
and also facilitates the ALP activity, calcium-mineralization. Finally, magnetic nanocomposite scafolds upregulatedosteogenic-related genes or proteins’ expression (e.g., Col I, Runx2, OCN, ON, BMP2) in seeded ADSCs with/without
osteo-diferentiation media conditions.
Conclusions: Together, these results indicate that Fe3O4 NPs within the natural structure of Col I increase osteogenic
diferentiation in osteogenic cues-free media conditions. This efect could be translated in vivo toward bone defects
healing. These fndings support the use of natural ECM materials alongside magnetic particles as composite scafolds
to achieve their full therapeutic potential in BTE treatments. |