Modification of clay with collagen in silk-clay composite biomaterial for bone tissue engineering

The purpose of our investigation is the formation of a novel composite scaffold by modification of montmorillonite (MMT) with collagen in silk scaffold. Silk fibroin serves as a promising base material suitable for bone tissue applications. Montmorillonite is a source of osteoinductive species which used as bone repair biomaterial systems. On the other hand, using collagen were improved cell adherence and proliferation. In this project different MMT particle–silk (SM) composite biomaterial scaffolds were compared with silk/MMT/collagen (SMC) scaffolds. When collagen was added to MMT solution at physiological pH, modification of clay occurred because of the interaction between MMT and collagen which scaffolds was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The biocompatibility of scaffolds was evaluated by MTT assay using rabbit osteoblast cells. Also good swelling and porosity characters of the composite scaffold caused to its improved mechanical properties. By using this method; collagen is interacted with the MMT solution at room temperature at physiological pH and therefore it is not denatured and remain stable during the duration of the experiments, a faster apatite precipitation on the scaffolds and the biomaterials supported the attachment and proliferation of rabbit osteoblast cells, maintaining high cell viability.