Enhanced cellular affinity for poly(lactic acid) surfaces modified with titanium oxide

Abstract

A surface modification method of biocompatible poly(lactic acid) (PLA) with titanium oxide (TiO x) is proposed. Tetraethoxytitanium(IV) (TEOT) was used to construct a TiO x network with a few residual ethyl groups via an acid-catalyzed sol-gel reaction exploiting surface segregation. The surface of the resulting PLA-TiO x composite films was flat and homogeneous when the TEOT loading was <5 wt%. The properties of the PLA-TiO x composite films were examined by microscopy to explore the fibroblast affinity for the scaffold surface. The number of cells attached to the PLA-TiO x composite films increased with increasing surface TiO x content. Cell morphology was also dependent upon the surface TiO x content, and the attached cells on the composite film were better spread than those on the pristine PLA film. These results clearly show that our proposed method is a useful technique to improve the affinity of cells for PLA surfaces.