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Abstract
The demand of favorable scaffolds has increased for the emerging cartilage tissue
engineering. Chondroitin sulfate (CS) and silk fibroin have been investigated and
reported with safety and excellent biocompatibility as tissue engineering scaffolds.
However, the rapid degradation rate of pure CS scaffolds presents a challenge to effectively
recreate neo-tissue similar to natural articular cartilage. Meanwhile the silk fibroin
is well used as a structural constituent material because its remarkable mechanical
properties, long-lasting in vivo stability and hypoimmunity. The application of composite
silk fibroin and CS scaffolds for joint cartilage repair has not been well studied.
Here we report that the combination of silk fibroin and CS could synergistically promote
articular cartilage defect repair. The silk fibroin (silk) and silk fibroin/CS (silk-CS)
scaffolds were fabricated with salt-leaching, freeze-drying and crosslinking methodologies.
The biocompatibility of the scaffolds was investigated in vitro by cell adhesion,
proliferation and migration with human articular chondrocytes. We found that silk-CS
scaffold maintained better chondrocyte phenotype than silk scaffold; moreover, the
silk-CS scaffolds reduced chondrocyte inflammatory response that was induced by interleukin
(IL)-1β, which is in consistent with the well-documented anti-inflammatory activities
of CS. The in vivo cartilage repair was evaluated with a rabbit osteochondral defect
model. Silk-CS scaffold induced more neo-tissue formation and better structural restoration
than silk scaffold after 6 and 12weeks of implantation in ICRS histological evaluations.
In conclusion, we have developed a silk fibroin/ chondroitin sulfate scaffold for
cartilage tissue engineering that exhibits immuno-inhibition property and can improve
the self-repair capacity of cartilage.