Degradation profile of synthetic coral scaffold in cell culture media

Abstract

The scaffold is one of the factors in tissue engineering that determine the success of bone regeneration. The important characteristic of the scaffold is able to degrade gradually. In vitro study using cells, the scaffold will be exposed to culture media. Therefore, degradation profile for scaffold needs to be examined. This study aims to investigate the degradation profile of synthetic coral scaffold in cell culture media using pH measurement. The method used the synthetic coral scaffolds were prepared from denaturalized collagen (gelatin) and calcium carbonate (calcite) with a concentration of 5:5 and 4:6 weight % in aqua dest. The scaffold s were fabricated in membrane thick film which was then physically crosslinked. The 10 % of gelatin scaffold was used as a control. The scaffolds were incubated in cell culture media (non-phenol red Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium) for 1 until 8 days, and pH changes of the medium were measured. As the result, Profile of degradation on day 1 to day 4 showed the 5:5 scaffold had the smallest degradation. The results indicated the significant different between scaffold concentration in day 1 (p=0.005), 5th(p=0.03), and 6th day (p=0.011). At the end of incubated days, the pH changed but not significantly different. LSD showed the significant differences between scaffold (5:5 and 4:6) with control and no significant difference between 2 concentrations of the scaffold. The conclusion of this study is the synthetic coral scaffold degraded gradually until the end incubation time and between concentration had different degradation profile in the early incubation time using pH measurement.