PEGDA-Based PolyMIPE and Hyaluronic Acid Stabilized Gold Nanoparticles Composites for Bone Tissue Engineering

Polymerized medium internal phase emulsions (PolyMIPEs) are macroporous materials have attracted interest in tissue engineering as highly porous scaffolds to support cell proliferation. The polymerized high internal phase emulsions (PolyHIPEs) developed through water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions are usually hydrophobic in nature and therefore in this work we aimed to use medium internal phase emulsions (MIPEs) to increase the hydrophilicity by using a hydrophilic polymer poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) through an oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion. To improve the bioactivity and cell attachment to the scaffolds we loaded the scaffold into the hyaluronic acid (HA) coated gold nanoparticles (HA-AuNPs).
Gold nanoparticles have demonstrated promising applications in tissue engineering due to their ease of synthesis, size controllability, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and biocompatibility. Recently, it was discovered that AuNPs can regulate cell differentiation and promote the regeneration of bone and cartilage tissue.
In this study, we synthesized a PEGDA-based polyMIPE composite incorporating HA-AuNPs. The resulting composite scaffold will be tested for its effectiveness in bone tissue engineering.