Core–Shell Bioactive Ceramic Robocasting: Tuning Component Distribution Beneficial for Highly Efficient Alveolar Bone Regeneration and Repair

Abstract

Biodegradable ceramic (composite) scaffolds have inspired worldwide efforts in bone regenerative medicine. However, balancing the biodegradation with the bone’s natural healing timescale remains difficulties; especially there is a lack of strategy to control component distribution and bioactive ion release favorable for stimulating alveolar bone tissue ingrowth in situ within an expected ‘time-window’. Here we aimed to develop the robocasting core-shell bioceramic scaffolds and investigate their physicochemical properties and osteostimulative capability in beagle alveolar bone defect model. The β-tircalcium phosphate (TCP) and 5% Mg-doped calcium silicate (CSi-Mg5) were used to fabricate the core-shell-typed [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] porous scaffolds. Both in vitro and in vivo studies show that the CSi-Mg5 shell readily contributed to the initial mechanical strength and early-stage osteogenic activity of the [email protected] scaffolds, including tunable ion release, enhanced biodegradation as well as outstanding osteogenesis capacity in comparison with the [email protected] scaffolds and clinically available Bio-Oss® granules in alveolar bone defects. Therefore, the presented core-shell robocasting of bioceramic technology and porous scaffold biomaterials enable an accurate preparation of highly bioactive and biodegradable scaffolds with a large freedom of design, and thereby may be beneficial for fabricating osteostimulation-tuned porous scaffolds for the challengeable alveolar bone defect reconstruction medicine.