3D-printed polycaprolactone combined with cartilage acellular matrix tissue engineered cartilage scaffold manufactured by low-temperature deposition manufacturing

Zhen Song¹Xulong Zhang²Yihao Xu²Jingyuan Ji³Wei Sun³Fei Fan²Jianjun You^2*Yuan Pang^3*

• ¹Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
• ²Plastic Surgery Hospital (PSH), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences andPeking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
• ³Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, Beijing, China

Tissue-engineered cartilage provides an alternative for tissue repair and reconstruction. Composite scaffolds incorporating acellular cartilage matrix (ACM) and synthetic polymers have shown particular promise for cartilage tissue engineering applications. However, the present composite scaffold has not been considered as a clinically available application due to insufficient mechanical property or inflammatory response. This study presents the composite scaffold composed of ACM and polycaprolactone (PCL) prepared by the low-temperature deposition manufacturing (LDM). Through LDM, the ACM was uniformly bond to PCL, resulting in satisfactory mechanical properties of the scaffold. Additionally, the scaffold had a multi-scale structure including microscale pores and nanoscale pores, which increased the porosity of the scaffold. Finally, cartilage-specific extracellular matrix deposition were successfully regenerated in vivo.