DEVELOPMENT OF MODIFIED SILK-BASED SCAFFOLD FOR THE LIGAMENT REGENERATION

Abstract

Currently, one of the most critical sports injuries is an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, and an artificial ligament used in ACL restoration is an effective method for ensuring a speedy recovery. However, ligament replacement can be achieved through autografts which has limitation of inadequate strength and donor site morbidity. Silk fibre scaffold has an excellent mechanical property which is because of the structural arrangement of protein in the silk fibre. Despite mechanical strength, it has elastic properties. Further functionalized silk fibre has been used to make it more effective for scaffold design for ligament regeneration. Coating on silk scaffold will produce more ECM matrix and accelerate ligament tissue regeneration. The objective of present study is to fabricate a hybrid braided silk-based scaffold which include four region Bone region (BR), Mineralised fibrocartilage region (MFR), Non-Mineralised fibrocartilage region (NFR), Ligament region (LR) of ACL, coated with nanocomposites of different material in different region. The coating of composite was optimized in different ratios and characterized using FESEM to analyse the surface morphology of the coated scaffold. Then chemical compositional analysis of coating material of four region of ligament was done by FTIR analysis. Biodegradability was done to observe the percentage mass loss of the coating material on the braided silk. Mechanical testing was carried out of coated, noncoated scaffolds to check mechanical strength of scaffolds. Cell proliferation was analysed by MTT assay. The hybrid braided silk scaffold promises to be better platform for ligament tissue engineering with optimal biocompatibility and mechanical properties.