Cuttlefish Bone Scaffold for Tissue Engineering: A Novel Hydrothermal Transformation, Chemical-Physical, and Biological Characterization

Purpose Natural resources are receiving growing interest because of their possible conversion from a cheap and easily available material into a biomedical product. Cuttlefish bone from Sepia Officinalis was investigated in order to obtain an hydroxyapatite porous scaffold using hydrothermal transformation. Methods Complete conversion of the previous calcium carbonate (aragonite) phase into a calcium phosphate (hydroxyapatite) phase was performed with an hydrothermal transformation at 200 °C (∼15 atm), for four hours, with an aqueous solution of KH ₂ PO ₄ in order to set the molar ratio Ca/P = 10/6 in a reactor (Parr 4382). The complete conversion was then analyzed by TGA, ATR-FTIR, x-ray diffraction, and SEM. Moreover, the material was biologically investigated with MC3T3-E1 in static cultures, using both osteogenic and maintenance media. The expression of osteogenic markers as ALP and osteocalcin and the cell proliferation were investigated. Results Cuttlefish bone has been successfully transformed from calcium carbonate into calcium phosphate. Biological characterization revealed that osteogenic markers are expressed using both osteogenic and maintenance conditions. Cell proliferation is influenced by the static culture condition used for this three-dimensional scaffold. Conclusions The new scaffold composed by hydroxyapatite and derived for a natural source presents good biocompatibility and can be used for further investigations using dynamic cultures in order to improve cell proliferation and differentiation for bone tissue engineering.