Thermoforming techniques for manufacturing porous scaffolds for application in 3D cell cultivation

Within the scientific community, there is an increasing demand to apply advanced cell cultivation substrates with increased physiological functionalities for studying spatially defined cellular interactions. Porous polymeric scaffolds are utilized for mimicking an organ-like structure or engineering...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials Science & Engineering C 2015-04, Vol.49, p.509-516
Main Authors: Borowiec, Justyna, Hampl, Jörg, Gebinoga, Michael, Elsarnagawy, Tarek, Elnakady, Yasser A., Fouad, Hassan, Almajhadi, Fahd, Fernekorn, Uta, Weise, Frank, Singh, Sukhdeep, Elsarnagawy, Dief, Schober, Andreas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biotechnology
Cell culture
Cell Line
Cellular
Cultivation
Foils (structural shapes)
Hepatocyte
Materials Testing
Mice
Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
Polylactic acid (PLA)
Polymer scaffold
Porosity
Scaffolds
Thermoforming
Thermoplastic forming
Three dimensional
Tissue Scaffolds
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Summary:Within the scientific community, there is an increasing demand to apply advanced cell cultivation substrates with increased physiological functionalities for studying spatially defined cellular interactions. Porous polymeric scaffolds are utilized for mimicking an organ-like structure or engineering complex tissues and have become a key element for three-dimensional (3D) cell cultivation in the meantime. As a consequence, efficient 3D scaffold fabrication methods play an important role in modern biotechnology. Here, we present a novel thermoforming procedure for manufacturing porous 3D scaffolds from permeable materials. We address the issue of precise thermoforming of porous polymer foils by using multilayer polymer thermoforming technology. This technology offers a new method for structuring porous polymer foils that are otherwise available for non-porous polymers only. We successfully manufactured 3D scaffolds from solvent casted and phase separated polylactic acid (PLA) foils and investigated their biocompatibility and basic cellular performance. The HepG2 cell culture in PLA scaffold has shown enhanced albumin secretion rate in comparison to a previously reported polycarbonate based scaffold with similar geometry. •A new method for manufacturing polymer scaffolds was presented.•Scaffold geometry can be precisely controlled while preserving the permeability.•The cells can be optically controlled and easy harvest from the scaffold.•Fabricated geometries are suitable to supports the 3D hepatocytes growth.•Enhanced cell aggregation and improve hepatic functions have been noticed.
ISSN:0928-4931
1873-0191
DOI:10.1016/j.msec.2015.01.002