Preparation and characterization of spiral-like micro-struts with nano-roughened surface for enhancing the proliferation and differentiation of preosteoblasts

Factors that are important for the development of tissue-engineered scaffolds include an appropriate selection of the physiochemical structure and surface characteristics to achieve the desired cellular responses depending on the target tissue or organ. In this study, we designed the linear polycaprolactone (PCL) strut, a spiral-like PCL strut that was fabricated using a 3D melt-printing system and a modified spiral-like PCL strut via a 3D melt-printing/plasma-etching process. The surface-roughened spiral-like strut showed significantly enhanced wettability and protein absorption abilities, which were closely related to cellular activities compared to those of linear and spiral-like struts. The in vitro cellular activities using the preosteoblasts (MC3T3-E1) indicated that the newly designed surface-modified spiral-like structure showed significantly higher metabolic activities and mineralization compared to those of conventionally 3D-printed struts.