Polyvinyl alcohol-carboxymethyl cellulose scaffolds for cartilage tissue formation

Cartilage has limited intrinsic capacity for self-repair after injury due to a lack of blood supply and low cell density. Tissue engineering holds promise for building cartilage grafts that withstand the stresses in joint. Major challenges of functional cartilage tissue development are scaffolding materials and structure of scaffold to support cartilage tissue formation. Scaffolds for engineered cartilage have been involved with the use of synthetic and natural polymers. Synthetic polymers provide well-control mechanical properties, while they are relatively inert to cell adhesion and tissue formation. Instead, natural polymers allow inherent cellular interaction and are present in abundance. In this study, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) were combined to form copolymer solution used in porous scaffold fabrication. Our goal was to investigate effects of PVA/CMC complex network on pore formation in scaffold and on cartilage tissue development. We found that addition of CMC into polymer solution could modulate scaffold architecture and swelling abilities. Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) of PVA/CMC scaffold showed the peak at 1599 cm−1 of C=O group, indicating the incorporation of CMC into the scaffold. Chondrocyte viability was observed up to 14 days post-cell seeding. These data suggested that PVA/CMC porous scaffold could be used in cartilage tissue repair.