Abstract:
The surface property of a biomaterial is known to affect its cell compatibility considerably, which is of particular importance for a medical implant, because the surface contacts directly with the host tissue. A suitable morphology on the implant’s surface serves to guide cell adhesion, migration, and proliferation, and is a key to success in tissue engineering. Various medical applications of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), biodegradable and biocompatible materials have been reported, including tissue engineering scaffolds, patches for use in cardiovascular surgery, and other implants. Films used as tissue engineering scaffolds must have several important performance features, including sufficient mechanical strength, biocompatibility, biodegradability and the ability to support cell attachment and proliferation. Here, we report efforts to develop novel materials based on porous polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) with biological origin as tissue engineering scaffold for living cells. The experimental conditions to obtain porous films were established. Porous polyester films were prepared by deposition from solutions with different porosity agents. The morphology and properties of the polymeric films were investigated by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and contact angle measurements (CA). The influence of the porosity upon the adherence of the living cells and the level of cytotoxicity of the polyester films were evaluated by in vitro assays.
