Development and biological evaluation of apatite fibre scaffolds with large pore size and high porosity for bone regeneration

Novel scaffolds have been developed from single-crystal apatite fibres synthesized by a homogeneous precipitation method using urea. The resulting apatite fibre scaffolds have large pores with diameters of 110-250 mum and high porosities of 98-99%. The scaffolds were biologically evaluated using two kinds of cells, osteoblast 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 in order to promote regeneration of bone.