AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB025210211
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Early Access

Immunomodulation and bone repair of 3D printed Seb/PCL scaffolds containing PDA coating

Qiping Huang1,2† Xiang Li1† Qinghong Fan1† Qian Du1 Guangquan Zhao1,2 Yuanhao Lv1,2 Yixiao Wang1 Weikang Xu2,3* Qingde Wa1*
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1 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Honghuagang District, Guizhou, China
2 Institute of biological and Medical Engineering, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangdong Chinese Medicine Intelligent Diagnosis and Treatment Engineering Technology Research center, Haizhu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
3 Guangdong Institute of Medical Instruments, National Engineering Research Center for Healthcare Devices, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Electronic Instruments and Materials, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received: 21 May 2025 | Accepted: 5 June 2025 | Published online: 6 June 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

3D-printed polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds are widely used for bone tissue engineering but suffer from deficiencies such as difficulty in cell adhesion, lack of osteogenic activity, and immunomodulatory capacity. Enhancing the biological response properties of PCL scaffolds has been a hot research topic in bone tissue engineering. In this study, three groups of scaffolds, polycaprolactone (PCL), strontium (Sr)-doped bioactive glass (SrBG)/PCL, and polydopamine (PDA)/SrBG/PCL were prepared. The scaffolds were assayed in vitro for their contributing to the expression of osteoinductive differentiation markers (ALP, RUNX2, and COL-1), and the behavior of macrophages (MPs) (CD206, ARG, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-10 and IL-12) was observed. In vivo effect on bone defect repair was assessed using Micro-CT, HE staining, Masson staining, and immunofluorescence staining of iNOS, CD163, BMP-2, and VEGF. The results showed that PDA/SrBG/PCL scaffolds significantly promoted the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs, inhibited the differentiation of MPs to the M1 phenotype, and promoted the differentiation of MPs to the M2 phenotype, resulting in a better pro-osteoporotic, immunomodulatory, and angiogenic effect in vivo. This may be related to the strontium (Sr²⁺) ions released by SrBG, and the surface modification of PDA further enhanced the immunomodulation and bone repair ability of the scaffold. The study demonstrated that the PDA/SrBG/PCL scaffolds have an excellent bone repair effect and are expected to be used in bone tissue engineering.

Keywords
3D printing
Polycaprolactone
Strontium-doped bioglass
Polydopamine
Immunomodulation
Bone repair
Funding
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82160577, 32000964), the Zunyi City Innovation Team Fund (Zunyi Science Talent (2024) No. 4), Guangdong Province Science and Technology Plan Project (2024A1515012265), the Hainan Academician Innovation Center (Nanfan Medical Materials and Health Technology Innovation Center) (2022GDASZH-2022020402-01).
Conflict of interest
We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript entitled.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing