Waterborne biodegradable polyurethane 3-dimensional porous scaffold for rat cerebral tissue regeneration

Abstract

Rehabilitation from traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant challenge for neurosurgeons as no effective strategies for cerebral tissue reconstruction can be adopted in clinical applications. To explore an appropriate method for cerebral tissue regeneration, we developed a type of waterborne biodegradable polyurethane (WBPU) 3-dimentional (3D) porous scaffold. Two types of WBPU (WBPU17 and WBPU25) 3D scaffolds were prepared based on different molar content of poly ethylene glycol (PEG) within the scaffolds. The porosity of WBPU17 and WBPU25 scaffolds was 83.29% ± 0.53% and 86.72% ± 0.78%, respectively. The mean pore size of the WBPU17 and WBPU25 scaffolds was 20.10 μm and 22.18 μm, respectively. No pronounced cytotoxicity was noticed for the rat glial cells when treated with degradation liquid of the WBPU17 and WBPU25 scaffold. Moreover, both the WBPU17 and WBPU25 scaffold treated groups showed stronger expression of neuronal growth associated protein (GAP43) and synaptophysin, indicating better nerve regeneration in the experiment groups compared to none in the scaffold control group in the rat TBI model. In addition, functional recovery also displayed a satisfactory result in the WBPU17 and WBPU25 scaffold treated groups. Overall, the WBPU25 scaffold had better performance than of the WBPU17 scaffold. The results of our experiments proved that the WBPU 3D porous scaffold, especially the WBPU25 scaffold, is a promising therapeutic implant for both cerebral tissue regeneration and neural functional recovery in TBI.