Scale-up feasibility of plasma deposition in 3D tissue engineering scaffolds

组织工程领域提供了产生替代器官和组织的可能性，以应对损失或失败，在人类医疗保健中有明显的应用。要实现这一原理的广泛应用，必须面对的众多挑战之一是在组织形成的早期阶段为细胞定位提供指导。一种常见的策略是使用合成支架来支持细胞，这种支架被设计成逐渐降解，留下细胞由它们随着时间自然产生的额外细胞基质来支持。组织工程中常用的合成聚合物的初始细胞粘附不良以及细胞进入支架中心的不良问题已在文献中广泛报道。诺丁汉大学已经在探索的一种方法（原理验证）是通过等离子沉积使支架化学功能化来促进细胞的粘附和侵入。然而，迄今为止，沉积物从支架外围的特征渗透深度（e-折叠长度）仅为1毫米左右。在这项可行性研究中，我们将尝试开发一种用单体（如烯丙胺）击打的低压脉冲聚合等离子体，这种等离子体具有必要的特性（脉冲开启和关闭时间的等离子体参数），可以使等离子体渗透到缩小尺寸的灌注体中，并跨越很远的距离。这将允许从目前处理的小规模支架椎间盘扩大到现实世界的软骨、骨或其他大型组织工程应用的支架。

The field of Tissue Engineering offers the possibility of generating replacement organs and tissue in response to loss or failure with obvious application in human health care.One of the many challenges that must be met to achieve wide application of this principle is the provision of guidance to cell positioning in the early stages of tissue formation. A common strategy is to support cells using synthetic scaffolds, designed to degrade gradually leaving cells supported by the extra cellular matrix that they produce naturally over time. The problem of initial poor cell adhesion to synthetic polymers commonly used in tissue engineering and poor ingress of cells into the scaffold centre has been widely reported in the literature. One method (proof-of-principle) that has been explored at Nottingham is to promote cell adhesion and ingress by chemically functionalising the scaffold using plasma deposition. However, to date the characteristic penetration depth (e-folding length) of the deposit from the scaffold periphery is only about 1 mm. In this feasibility study, we shall attempt to develop a low pressure pulsed polymerising plasma struck in monomers such as allyl amine which has the characteristics (plasma parameters in on and off time of the pulse) necessary to allow penetration of the plasma into pours of reduced dimensions and over much large distances. This will allow a scale up from small scale scaffold discs treated currently to real-world scaffolds for cartilage, bone or other large tissue engineering applications.