Preparation of three-dimensional poly(ϵ-caprolactone) porous tissue engineering scaffolds by a combination of microcellular injection foaming and polymer leaching

Three-dimensional (3D) interconnected porous poly (ϵ-caprolactone) (PCL) scaffolds with desirable pore sizes and porosities have been prepared by utilizing both microcellular injection foaming and polymer leaching techniques. The incorporation of water-soluble poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) served as a porogen to improve the porosity and interconnectivity. Highly oriented and elongated pore structures were obtained from the scaffolds via microcellular injection foaming. It was found that the pore diameter variety and the porosity increased with PEO. The compression modulus of the porous PCL scaffold decreased from 68.2 MPa for neat PCL to 46.7 MPa for 50%PCL (i.e., 50%PCL/50%PEO blend by volume) with an increase in porosity, which may render these scaffolds suitable for a variety of medical and tissue engineering applications. 3T3 fibroblast cell culture was performed to confirm the biocompatibility and cell viability of the scaffolds, which revealed that the cells proliferated the best on the 50% PCL scaffolds, as compared to the other three scaffolds, due to the more elongated and spindle-shaped pore structures, indicating favorable cell-scaffold interactions. Therefore, this novel method offers an effective means for scalable fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds.