Curdlan–Chitosan Electrospun Fibers as Potential Scaffolds for Bone Regeneration

Clément Toullec (1, 2, 3) , Jean Le Bideau (4) , Valerie Geoffroy (5, 6) , Boris Halgand (5, 6, 7) , Nela Buchtova (2, 1) , Rodolfo Molina-Peña (2, 1) , Emmanuel Garcion (2, 1) , Sylvie Avril (2, 1) , Laurence Sindji (2, 1) , Admire Dube (8) , Frank Boury (2, 1) , Christine Jérôme (9)

1 ICAT - SFR UA 4208 Interactions Cellulaires et Applications Thérapeutiques
2 CRCINA - Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie et Immunologie Nantes-Angers
3 CESAM RU [Liège, Belgium]
4 IMN - Institut des Matériaux Jean Rouxel
5 RMeS - Regenerative Medicine and Skeleton
6 UFR Odonto - Université de Nantes - UFR Odontologie
7 Pôle hospitalo-universitaire PHU4 - OTONN - Ostéo-articulaire - Tête et cou - Odontologie - Neurochirurgie - Neurotraumatologie [CHU Nantes]
8 UWC - University of the Western Cape
9 Université de liège - CESAM RU [Liège, Belgium]

Polysaccharides have received a lot of attention in biomedical research for their high potential as scaffolds owing to their unique biological properties. Fibrillar scaffolds made of chitosan demonstrated high promise in tissue engineering, especially for skin. As far as bone regeneration is concerned, curdlan (1,3‐β‐glucan) is particularly interesting as it enhances bone growth by helping mesenchymal stem cell adhesion, by favoring their differentiation into osteoblasts and by limiting the osteoclastic activity. Therefore, we aim to combine both chitosan and curdlan polysaccharides in a new scaffold for bone regeneration. For that purpose, curdlan was electrospun as a blend with chitosan into a fibrillar scaffold. We show that this novel scaffold is biodegradable (8% at two weeks), exhibits a good swelling behavior (350%) and is non‐cytotoxic in vitro. In addition, the benefit of incorporating curdlan in the scaffold was demonstrated in a scratch assay that evidences the ability of curdlan to express its immunomodulatory properties by enhancing cell migration. Thus, these innovative electrospun curdlan–chitosan scaffolds show great potential for bone tissue engineering.

Mots clés: curdlan; chitosan; electrospinning; regenerative medicine; tissue engineering

Domaines: Rhumatologie et système ostéo-articulaire; Gériatrie et gérontologie; Anatomie, Histologie, Anatomopathologie [q-bio.TO]

Clément Toullec, Jean Le Bideau, Valerie Geoffroy, Boris Halgand, Nela Buchtova, et al.. Curdlan–Chitosan Electrospun Fibers as Potential Scaffolds for Bone Regeneration. Polymers, 2021, 13, pp.526. ⟨10.3390/polym13040526⟩. ⟨inserm-03137953⟩