Electrospun coaxial nanofibers loading with perovskite and icariin to enhance the bone scaffold-mediated osteogenesis

Electrospun nanofibers with high specific surface area and excellent extracellular matrix (ECM)-bio-mimetic morphology have aroused intensive interest as ideal bone tissue engineering scaffolds. Considering the inorganic/organic nanocomposite characteristics of native bone, a co-electrospinning strategy was utilized to generate innovative core-sheath nanofibers as a potential bone scaffold candi-date. The core was constructed with icariin (ICA) loaded hyaluronic acid (HyA), while the sheath was made from perovskite (Na2La2Ti3O10, NLT) nanoparticle loaded poly-3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate (PHBV). The as-developed PHBV/NLT-HyA/ICA nanofiber scaffold possessed stable network structure, great surface hydrophilicity (88.5 +/- 2.0 degrees), and superior mechanical performances (6.3 +/- 0.6 MPa for ultimate strength and 133.8 +/- 17.3 MPa for Young's modulus). Importantly, ICA was demonstrated to exhibit a sustained release profile from the coaxial nanofibers. The cumulative drug release was 74.52% after 24 days. The biological tests displayed that the PHBV/NLT-HyA/ICA nanofiber scaffold significantly promoted the viability and proliferation, and phenotypic maturation of human fetal osteoblasts (HFOBs). Moreover, the contents of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and calcium were found to be highest in the cell-seeded PHBV/NLT-HyA/ICA nanofiber scaffold group due to a combination of NLT loading and ICA release. The present study provides an innovative strategy to construct coaxial nanofiber scaffold with PHBV/NLT as sheath and HyA/ICA as core for bone tissue engineering. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).