A platelet-derived growth factor releasing chitosan/coral composite scaffold for periodontal tissue engineering

In recent years, functional biomaterial research has been directed towards the development of improved scaffolds and new drug delivery systems. The objective of this study was to develop growth-factor gene releasing coral composites as a regenerative material for periodontal regeneration. In this study, porous chitosan/coral composites combined with plasmid encoding platelet-derived growth factor B (PDGFB) gene were prepared through a freeze-drying process. These scaffolds were evaluated in vitro by analysis of microscopic structure and cytocompatibility. The expression of PDGFB and type-I collagen were detected with RT-PCR after human periodontal ligament cells (HPLCs) were seeded in this scaffold. Then these scaffolds were implanted subcutaneously into athymic mice. Results indicated that HPLCs showed much better proliferation properties on the gene-activated scaffolds than on the pure coral scaffolds, and the expression of PDGFB and type-I collagen up-regulated in gene-activated scaffold. After implanted in vivo, HPLCs not only proliferate but also increased the expression of PDGFB. This study demonstrated the potential of coral scaffold combined PDGFB gene as a good substrate candidate in periodontal tissue regeneration.