Composite PCL-chitosan scaffolds with dual porosity fabricated via additive manufacturing technique for tissue engineering and regenerative purposes

During advances in tissue engineering, the morphological aspects of scaffolds, involving pore size and porosity, have been of great importance. Despite all improvements, the challenging issue associated with the constraints of manipulating scaffold architecture using typical fabrication techniques has remained. Regarding this issue, fused deposition modeling, combined with porogen leaching, is a promising approach to enhance pore size and porosity. Using combinatorial methods, we aimed to design composite scaffolds with dual porosity using PCL as a base polymer. Results revealed that the dual pore created after leaching could increase the porosity of constructs, especially PP20CS50W (80.1±0.1), which showed a positive effect on the cellular behavior, as validated by the MTS test and SEM. The combination of PCL with other components could also improve the hydrophilicity of the construct. Furthermore, in vivo investigation revealed that PP20CS50W exhibited higher angiogenesis and fibrotic thickness compared to the others, possibly due to its higher porosity and a successful graft-host response, respectively. It can be concluded that the composite with dual porosity is preferred over the widely used PCL for tissue engineering studies. In addition, this combined methodology, accompanied by dual porosity, may hold promise for future improvements in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.