Fabrication and Characterization of NanoCalcium Sulfate and Human Platelet Lysate as a Growth Factor Delivery System

Introduction: Nanocalcium sulfate represents a novel scaffold with enhanced physical properties. The reported advantages of using nanomaterials over conventional size constructs for fabricating functional scaffold/growth-factor delivery systems are based on their increased surface area for growth factor adsorption and cell attachment. Recent reports on human platelet lysate suggest that it is a reliable source of osteogenic growth factors and is capable of potentiating robust increases in the activity of osteogenic cells To gain more insight on the advantages of fabricating nanomaterials with growth factors, it is important to determine the amount of growth factor content being released and whether or not it is still biologically active. Treating nanomaterials with growth factors may give rise to novel regenerative micro/nano-environments that could be useful for bone tissue engineering applications. Materials and methods: Scaffolds were fabricated from nanocalcium sulfate mixed with human platelet lysate. The amount of growth factor content released from the scaffold at varying time points was quantified and the biocompatibility of the system was assessed by measuring the resultant activity of mesenchymal stem cells and human osteoblastic cells seeded with the scaffold over a 48 hour incubation period. Results and conclusion: The incubation of both mesenchymal stem cells and human osteoblastic cells with nano calcium sulfate scaffolds loaded with human platelet lysate induced significant stimulatory effects on the activity of both cell types. This indicates that the growth factor content released from the scaffold system maintained its bioactivity and also provides additional evidence suggesting that nanocalcium sulfate represents an efficient vehicle for the delivery of bioactive molecules capable of enhancing the activity of key cell types involved in osseous formation. These results are supportive of the emerging potential for the development of functional scaffold/growth factor delivery systems that could be used therapeutically in the treatment of craniofacial bone defects.